Valerie Armstrong

I attribute my success to fighting and clawing to do better, be better, and learn more, all while being a strong influence for my girls. My biggest goal through all of this was proving to my children that it does not matter how old you are, how many kids you've had, or how many mistakes you've made with life. If you put your mind to something, you can achieve it if you try real hard. I was 30 when I went to college as a single mom, worked a full-time job, and was raising a teenager, a preteen, and one little one. I graduated with honors with my bachelor's and got a scholarship for my master's. My girls got to watch me walk when I graduated in California, which was a really huge accomplishment for me because I felt like I set the bar for my girls. Nothing that you think has held you back is really holding you back if you fight for it hard enough. I've also learned to stick to who I am, not always say yes, and remember that other people's words and actions don't get to decide how I feel and react. That's all me. I have to make the wise choice and decision to act and behave the way that I know I should and believe in myself.

The best career advice I ever received came from Kathy Uecker at Point Bank. She told me, 'Don't always say yes. Stick to who you are. You need to just remember who you are. You don't give yourself enough credit. You are so much more than you cut yourself to, and you need to...' She gave me this pep talk that just changed the way I thought about my own self and my own self-value. I came from an abusive childhood and home, so I have battled insecurities my whole life, not thinking I was good enough for something, or just little comments that would shut me down. She kind of helped push me past all that and made me realize that other people's words and actions don't get to decide how I feel and react. That's all me. I have to make the wise choice and decision to act and behave the way that I know I should and believe in myself, which was really hard for a long time, but I've gotten there. I really can't wait for the person to finally give me the opportunity to do what I really want to do, because they're gonna be so amazed at just how awesome I really can be.

Don't settle. It's okay to hear no. Keep fighting for what you really want. It's okay to be... it is so okay to say no. And it's not just about your employer being a good fit for you, or for you for them. They need to be a good fit for you, too. It's gotta go both ways, or it's never gonna work well. So between just learning to say no, don't always do everything everybody wants you to do. It really doesn't do you any favors. In the end, it'll get you taken advantage of. And just fight for who you are. You are strong, you are beautiful, and you are courageous, and you can be and do anything you put your mind to.

AI is both a challenge and a huge opportunity in my field right now. As much as it's becoming such a huge thing, it's not being utilized in the banking world as much as I think it could be. So I think there's a big deficit in that area of what I do. I've been learning a lot about AI at home, and programming, and things like that, just because I don't want to get left behind. It does a lot of really neat things, and I'd say that's definitely an area that needs work in the area that I'm in. Everybody thinks AI is gonna take their jobs, but somebody's gotta teach it to do your job first. So there's always got to be a human component somewhere. Until they outsmart us.

The values most important to me in my work and personal life are integrity, learning, and having a really strong belief in ethics. I love to learn and am very coachable. I'm also very futuristic. I like to look towards the future and find ways to keep a business or organization thriving, because you can't stay still, you can't be stagnant. I'm really big on ethics, and if I wouldn't do something, there's no way I would teach somebody to do something that way or encourage something like that. It's always going to be to do what's right, and sometimes just being an example of doing what's right in that role is how you inspire others. And you can't always be right, sometimes you're wrong, so when you are, you need to take it gracefully and learn from what you did that was not right.