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The most inspiring advice from these 3 women leaders in banking

On being open to change, the best way to communicate and more from a recent Women Driving Payments event in Wilmington.

The Women Driving Payments panel (left to right) moderator Julie Pukas, Dena Hamilton, Celia Moncholi. (Photo by Kym McGlashan)

Speaking to a group of women in emerging payments last month, Celia Moncholi, Head of Community Development at TD Bank, stressed the need to be open to opportunities and adapt to change, while realizing, “It never ‘is what it is.’ It is what you make it!”
I found Celia’s message to be so empowering – one to keep in your pocket and review on a less than sunny day. At the event, held at TD’s Wilmington location at Hercules Plaza and which I helped organize as part of the new Philadelphia Women Driving Payments/Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions meetup, all three speakers — Celia, Dena Hamilton, general manager and director of enterprise fraud and security management at NCR Corporation and panel moderator Julie Pukas, head of U.S. Cards and Merchant Solutions for TD Bank — stressed the importance of honesty and straight forward feedback. Care enough to help others develop, including the seeking, accepting and addressing of feedback for you, yourself. Hearing all three very accomplished women focus on integrity, self-awareness and collective improvement was yet another motivating message that reassured my confidence in the current and future leaders in payments.
We had over 110 women and men from large and local banks, credit unions, small businesses and technology consulting firms express interest in attending the emerging payments and change management networking and leadership panel luncheon. All three of the speakers came to Wilmington for the event, too: Celia and Julie live in New Jersey, while Dena is from Columbus, Ohio.

The crowd at the Women's Network in Electronic Transactions event in Wilmington in January 2017.

The crowd at the Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions event in Wilmington in January 2017. (Photo by Kym McGlashan)


Here’s what else stuck out to me.
The panel began by talking about what “emerging payments” really means to them. For Dena, it was a trendy catch all term to capture changes occurring in the world of electronic transactions. While Celia kidded that her understanding was largely informed by her teenage son and replenishing funds via P2P app Venmo. What caught my attention was that while Dena and Celia had very different interactions with emerging payments, both women focused on the need to ensure accessibility and security, via biometrics and other methods, for their stakeholders.
When it comes to managing change, Dena and Celia shared that you have to go beyond effective communication to the point of educating and empowering your stakeholders. Dena furthered that in her experience people generally are good communicators, yet when things break down, they think they have a communication problem when, in fact, the real issue is syncing up to the same “spot.” Dena joked that “women in particular tend to jump five to six steps ahead.”
“Perhaps it has something to do with the ability to multi-task,” she said, as she smiled at a male member of the audience. “You have to ensure that you sync up the starting point, then continue your communication/change efforts.”
As someone who tends to jump right in (guilty of the five to six steps ahead), Dena’s emphasis on syncing up to the same “spot” really resonated with me. I find myself making a conscious effort to provide background to ensure everyone has an understanding of the current situation as opposed to immediately talking about next steps.
Balancing work and life is an art we all dabble with.

With our last few minutes, we opened up for questions from the audience. Our first question centered on the issue of work/life balance, particularly when it comes to having a family. Celia laughed that “balance” isn’t the word she would use, but integration is. Sometimes work will get 90 percent and other times home will. You have to make it work for you! The audience nodded and exchanged communications of comfort and understanding as balancing work and life is an art we all dabble with.
Dena followed Celia’s message by stressing the importance of accepting and understanding the age old theory of trade-off – you will always miss out on something – so you have to balance and determine what your trades will be. With that in mind, I hope you found the time spent reading this summary blog to be well worth the trade … and that you’ll consider trading an alternative to attend the next Philadelphia Women Driving Payments event live☺
Our next event is being planned for spring 2017. Join here to stay in the know or reach out to me if you would like to get more involved.

This is a guest post by Catherine Maloney, a vice president of product development for TD Bank and Philadelphia Women Driving Payments organizer.

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