In this insightful episode, Victoria Pelletier, Managing Director at Accenture, shares how she has leveraged the lessons she has learned from 20 years of executive leadership and 18 mergers and acquisitions.
You’ll learn how to effectively manage change by proactively investing in your personal brand and fostering authentic relationship within your organization or division.
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the Secrets of the High Demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach. And that is Victoria Pelletier. She’s a 20 plus year corporate executive and board director. She is currently managing director. I’m sorry, she’s currently a managing director at Accenture. She’s nicknamed the turnaround queen, I hope we can dive into that by former colleagues and employers. And Victoria inspires and empowers her team and clients to change mindsets to drive growth in Business and Leadership and Culture. Victoria, I’m so glad you’re here today. Welcome to the show.
Victoria Pelletier
Thanks for having me. Scott. I’m happy to be here.
Scott Ritzheimer
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I can’t wait to dive into this. But before we kind of get into the meat of the conversation here, I’d love to just hear a little bit about how you got into doing what you’re doing. Maybe just kind of add some color to what did what are all those 20 plus years, where have they led you to now.
Victoria Pelletier
it makes me feel incredibly old Scott, when I you know sort of look back and recount where I’ve come from to where I am now. And a lot of advice I’ll give people is to follow their their passion. In fact, I’ve told my both of my children that in my case, that’s exactly what I did. I had plans on being a lawyer, a corporate lawyer. And while I was in university, I worked in a bank in their contact center. And after six months, I got promoted into a leadership role. And when I was thinking about going to law school, they offered me a relocation across the country in a senior management role. And I thought, heck, I’ll take a year off. If I liked the city, I moved in cross country, I’ll stay there and go to university there. Otherwise, I’ll move back home. And I did neither of those things, go to law school or move back west. And it’s because I loved what I was doing. And so I ended up working in financial services in operations in well, I’d like 20, I was 20 years old, and I have no problem. I’m 4647 this year. And as of 2020, I’m working in digital banking way before anyone was really ready for what that looked like. It was really exciting. And then in 2024, I got recruited out of the banking environment where I’d been running these large scale operations to go and be the COO for large outsourcing organization, which was a massive stretch role for me. But I had banking experience, contact center experience operations, you name it, so they took a chance on me. And that is where the trajectory for the rest of my 20 plus years now as an executive has been in b2b predominantly professional services, but in also a number of different slices of what that looks like over these years.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, fantastic. So I have to ask, well, the the nickname The turnaround queen. So tell us a little bit about where that came from and and how you’ve kind of taken the lessons you learned from those turnarounds and apply them to clients you work with today.
Victoria Pelletier
Well, I’ve been a part of 18 Mergers Acquisitions or related transaction. Some of those were a joint venture divestiture one was a joint venture begin. And then I’ve also supported clients with their own m&a activities. And a big part of my role in those transactions has been the integration of those businesses. And number one, number two is been looking at how do we create synergies to, which sadly means a lot of restructuring and cost takeout that comes in those transactions. But I’ve also been putting positions over the years to take distressed markets or business units and turn them around. So that’s where the nickname has come from, as a result of all of those activities. And usually sitting at the heart of the integration and turnaround, post acquisition or some kind of merger activities.
Scott Ritzheimer
What do you find are some of the biggest challenges posed aquas acquisition? We’ve had a number of guests on the show have talked about, you know, kind of, from the selling side of things, but you’re one of the first to really bring not necessarily the buying side. But that that what do you do after you bought it? So someone’s out there? They’re thinking about making an acquisition? What what should they be? What questions should they be asking now?
Victoria Pelletier
Well I’ve been through enough including even a company I personally acquired in 2017. And I wouldn’t say like, there’s never enough due diligence, that needs to be completed on both buy and sell side if and from the sell side and maybe not from the owners, the shareholders who are going to benefit but for the employees that are left behind. So I mean, due diligence, due diligence, due diligence, but also then the change management and communication part of it is critical. You know, so I one company I worked for we acquired six companies in less than two years, and is sitting in I was leading North American operations at the time and so again, a lot 80% of the employees that came over were part Have ops. So I just sit and look through a lot of what that was going to look like going forward. And there, I mean, there was fear for those that we were bringing over, not just for the employees. But quite frankly, in many cases, we were buying the goodwill, the contracts, the you know, that they had, we weren’t buying, you know, fit physical product in the service of space. And so I would emphasize how important it is to have cohesive change management, what I often see from companies is they think they can do it themselves, they have a project management office, or PMO, that does a lot of those activities or other kinds of works internally. But they’ve never been through this kind of scale of change management and understanding the criticality of the communication to, you know, all parties involved, would be really, really important. And then also from a leadership perspective, who’s at the helm, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to have conversations with leaders in this journey, basically, you know, you’re on the bus or you’re not, right, we’re in, we’re in this, we’re going to do it together. But that means, you know, there’s a hierarchy for a reason we can come together and attempt to gain consensus, but at some point, we’re being asked to do something and move forward. Right?
Scott Ritzheimer
What are some of the biggest mistakes that you’ve seen, either you’ve made, or you’ve seen others make, and not even to name names or anything? But what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see happening post acquisition?
Victoria Pelletier
Lack of transparency, you know, in what’s coming, as I said, there’s, I think there’s not think, I know, there’s great fear from all parties, particularly employees. And again, you’re buying the goodwill, the institutional knowledge, the relationship they have with your customers. And so not getting that right in terms of not being transparent, it doesn’t mean that you as a leader, you, you can’t in many times inform everyone of what’s going on, but to the best of your ability being incredibly transparent, around the journey that we’re on and how we’re going to do it together, how they’re going to be involved in the process. It’s not lack of transparency is one of the biggest mistakes I touched on the other, which is not having additional support, not just a plus one from someone’s day job to manage the project, the integration and the change in communications piece to do together.
Scott Ritzheimer
I think that transparency piece is so big, because I think it’s oftentimes even overlooked. Because it feels more transparent as it is, I think one of the things in any type of change management, not just post acquisition, but any type of change management, the leaders have been working through that change for quite some time. And by the time it actually comes to fruition, they’re kind of on to the next thing, or it makes sense to them. But they’ve had the time to both emotionally and mentally processed through what’s going on. And I think we’ve we forget that the folks were explored. And we’re now communicating it to it’s the first time they’ve heard it. And and so there’s this assumption that Oh, I said it, you got it. Right. And that’s if we’ve been said, and so what have you found are some of the the kind of, I don’t know if techniques is the right word, but the strategy is to get out in front of the communication and maintaining transparency through the whole process.
Victoria Pelletier
Well, it’s not only that there needs to be a really solid communication plan with as much transparency and openness around what the plan is, that comes from the top, it comes from a change team than the executive leadership team, but that it needs to go all the way down, as you just said, Scott, I mean, there’s leaders who will feel like well, I got it like they’ve been involved in the due diligence, they’ve been involved for a long time, but recognizing that the fear and need to hold the hands of their employees through the change. So what makes a critical difference is making sure that the one on one relationship with the employees includes that kind of level of authentic, transparent communication and from a from a place of care and compassion, quite frankly. So this really human centered leadership place.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so good. That’s so good. So we’ve been through all of these these turnarounds, and acquisitions you’ve done time and corporate now, tell us a little bit about what you would say some of the most important work you’re doing for your clients today?
Victoria Pelletier
Oh, it’s a multitude of things. So at Accenture, I had been recruited for our CEO and board transformation team, which is the agenda of CEOs and the board members. And usually that’s actually could be m&a. It could be digital transformation, but really, it’s this intersection with leadership and culture, then their personal engagement. I also lead our majority of our travel industry portfolio. So you can imagine how over these last couple of years travel and hospitality has been impacted. So the blend of the kind of those two areas in which I support at Accenture means I’m spending time with recovery post pandemic specifically for this industry that was hit so so hard, and that’s not only how do they return to growth But in many cases, they had, you know, a burning, burning platform, whether it’s aged infrastructure before. So now how do they get capital for that? How do they attract talent back in? How do they reduce cost? I mean, so again, it’s a multi prong faceted challenge that they sit with. But one of the bigger ones is has a lot to do, again, with people. And the talent transformation that’s required. leadership needs to operate in a very different way than they used to. So how can they you know, strive for high performance, while being very human centered, creating this flexibility in the workforce, trying to identify the purpose, not only for core at a corporate level, but down to the individual as well. So I spent a lot of time having those conversations with senior leaders.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right? And how have you found the culture and how culture and purpose are communicated has changed post COVID? Because I mean, there’s just been massive transformation in the way that we do work. How have you found that has changed? And what do we do about it?
Victoria Pelletier
Well, I think, I mean, the expectation for consumers who we buy from, where do we choose to spend our money? Is it aligned with our purpose, our values, but employees want the same, they want to work for organizations where there’s an alignment to that, and I think a lot of companies had, you know, purpose, vision mission statements on the wall somewhere or up on their intranet. But bringing that down to the individual level, and articulating what that means, you know, Simon Sinek, start with why but you know, how do you build that kind of connectedness. And employees want that now, we’ve made decisions over the last number of years to prioritize things differently, then hustle, hustle hard all the time, family, and health and balance and all of these things. And so, what I’m seeing are companies are finding needing to find a way to curate a purpose across their organization that aligns with what I call their superpower as well. So I mean, you can’t be good at all, all things. And so figure out what that is. But then how do you bring that down across the entire organization, employees and customers are not going to believe it, if it’s not baked throughout the entire part of the organization’s you can have this great purpose and impact statement. But it needs to be built into not just diversity in your workforce, but you know, in accessibility to products and service to customers, to your suppliers, the way in which we communicate the way in which we choose to invest our dollars or charitable giving all of those sorts of things. So that’s changed dramatically. And we need to have more people at the table to be engaged in that conversation for it to be truly effective.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And how, how do you do that without slowing things down? Right, the bigger the table, the longer the meal? And and so how is it that you are kind of with you, the teams that you’re working with? Right? We’ve got a bigger and bigger table? How is it that we get everyone and keep everyone moving in the same direction? And at the same speed? Or do we?
Victoria Pelletier
I we do but what I found is and in lots and I’ve spent a majority of my career in large global organizations that are highly matrixed. And many of the clients that I work with are very much the same. And so this federated model creates a challenge to get people as you know, slows things down. And so what I see being really effective is looking at the organizational design doesn’t mean that we need to eliminate the matrix structure, but governance in terms of a central team coming together who can help build the bridge across those disparate functional areas, that helps one keep people aligned, but then on track to move things forward.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s good. It seems to make a ton of sense. You sit down and you do an org chart, the matrix structure just seems like the obvious solution on paper. But more often than not, when it gets down to it, you’re leaving. If you’re not careful, you’re leaving it to the people inside the structure to try and create the clarity that you didn’t take the time to build yourself. 100% Yeah. And so, yeah. Now, what would you say? How much are you seeing remote working, kind of impacting that aspect as well? Right. So you’ve got you got a bigger table, they’re probably they’re more remote. And, and you’re dealing with complexities and matrix structures. How is how’s the remote workforce playing into that? That’s the first question then you can kind of tie in how do you translate and communicate culture in a remote environment?
Victoria Pelletier
It’s one of I think the greatest complexities or challenges facing companies going forward, because employees want flexibility. Now in terms of where they’re working, and so what you’ve seen is in some cases, some industries financial service CES was kind of the first to know everyone’s coming back into the office. And employees reeled from that and started to quit. So they backing off of that, so employees want it. But employers have a large real estate footprint. So you know, balancing all of that with the needs of the proverbial water cooler talk, right? It’s, I wrote an article a few weeks ago, when I said, that’s why I love working from home, I like that I, you know, don’t have a commute, except, you know, from one room to the next to sit and get on my next zoom call. But I’m missing the engagement, you know, with with colleagues. And so I think companies are going to need to find a way to have a hybrid model that works for its employees, its leadership team, that can try to build the right kind of culture and environment that keep people really highly engaged and stay there long term. Right. And to your second question, though, for me, culture is actually an outcome, right, we can, again, put a nice statement on the wall of what we want in our culture to be, but that’s a reflection of purpose and impact policies, procedures, the leadership and the way they act, the way they speak. You know that that human centered approach. But also a lot of that is demonstrated through the connectedness one on one. So this for me is, like I said, it’s exceptionally challenging. And this is why more and more companies are spending timing, investing in their leadership and the overall development of their teams. Because we’re operating in a very different way. And what we might have overheard heard standing in the coffee room is very different than, you know, the two minutes of chatter that happens while everyone’s gathering on a video conference.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, there’s the analogy of kind of, you know, elevation or altitude, it would be the better one leading, you know, leading at the ground level leading at 5000, leading at 30,000 feet. And you hear a lot of talk about leading at the ground level, you hear a lot of talk about leading at 30,000 feet. But what I found, particularly post COVID, and while we were dealing with the constant changes in COVID, is that there’s a much greater demand on our ability to lead at 5000 feet. Right, where the air is a little rougher, you know, we don’t quite have the elevation to see far. But you know, we’re not touching the ground either. And, and I think you’re you’re kind of pulling out the same thing of we’ve got to be able to invest in leadership throughout the organization, it can’t just be at the top, it can’t just be at the bottom, you’ve got an those two together. Would you agree?
Victoria Pelletier
I 100% Scott, I do. And but the other thing as well is that we need to look at our performance and compensation models associated with that. So yes, you can give coaching on how to be a good leader. But if you’re not incenting, all across the organization, you can potentially drive the alternate behavior, which then has a negative impact on culture, employee engagement, productivity, retention, etc.
Scott Ritzheimer
So true. So true. All right. Here’s the moment I’ve been waiting for, as my favorite part of the show. And that’s where I asked this question. And that is, what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What What was that one thing that you wish everybody listening today knew.
Victoria Pelletier
That’s, that’s hard for me. Because for me, they’re really they’re closely intertwined. Two of them. And one is around the importance of our individual personal brand in that people do business with people they like, and they trust and therefore they want to do business with. So being the you know, CEO of brand you if you will, regardless of what level you’re at, in the organization and starting it early, I tell my kids that, but that the related part of that is the connectedness that around who people want to do business and engage with. And so recognizing, and this is one thing I don’t think they teach in graduate school is the dynamics of relationships. And we talked about matrix organizations, and how to navigate that as effectively as possible. So that’s something I wish that my 20 year old self would have learned, rather than some of the scars that I’ve got over the years, from sometimes doing it the wrong way.
Scott Ritzheimer
Awesome. And was there a second one in there?
Victoria Pelletier
Well, no. Well, your brand, and then the relationship, the relationship.
Scott Ritzheimer
I got it. I’m with you now. Perfect. Yes. So yeah, it’s it’s a fascinating thing, because I think the last thing that most people working up the corporate ladder I thinking about is their personal brand. Right. But when you look at how much time they’re actually dedicating to it, it’s actually a lot. They just don’t realize that’s what they’re doing. And they’re not being intentional about it. And yeah, so it’s, it’s a great point. Now, I’ve worked with enough coaches, consultants, advisors to know that we’ve got a knack for spending our best time and energy on helping everyone around us but sometimes that can come at the cost of us working on ourselves or on our own business and objective And so what is it that you’re doing for this next stage of growth for you as a leader and in your career? And what challenges do you think you’ll have to overcome to get there?
Victoria Pelletier
Is I said, at the beginning of my intro, I’ve, majority of my career has been in b2b Professional Services. I’d like to go and be on the other side of the table permanently, you know, going back to being the C suite executive that gets to hire consultants like me, to see, you know, that through to fruition, you know, sometimes it’s frustrating to work on an engagement and go, here’s this pretty strategy, engagement, you’ve asked us to deliver, and then you leave it in their hands, and then like, okay, and then I can find out maybe a year later, they might not have followed it through. So for me, it’ll be to make that jump back to being one of my clients. And the biggest challenges were, you know, in in recession, although people were argue whether we really are or aren’t, but still, there’s a lot of insecurity and caution around what does that look like? And so, you know, getting hiring leaders at that C suite and board levels to be comfortable with some of the change that will come for me to leap back into that space will be the challenge I’ll need to overcome. And going back to brand, how do I tell that story and articulating it to then, because many of them will sort of be myopically focused on where I’ve spent my time these last couple decades?
Scott Ritzheimer
Right? Right. I, one of the best pieces of advice I got and it was actually from a pastor talking about counseling, but it applies so much to Coaches and Consultants is that you can never be more desperate than your client. Like you can never you can never want there, you know, fulfillment, ambitions, goals, whatever it may be more than they do. And that leaves us in an uncomfort, especially as doers, you know, it’s this uncomfortable moment have you do you have to hand it over and, and so I understand that pain deeply. And it’s, it’s a, it’s actually where a lot of especially new coaches and consultants get tripped up, because they’re used to being the one going out and getting it done. They used to be able to, you know, this is it like that some form of leadership that had some hierarchy underneath them, it can go with it. But then you come out into the world of coaching and consulting. It’s like, oh, you know, I don’t actually get to drive it through. I don’t get to I get to tell people what to do, but they don’t really listen. At least not as much as I would like. That’s great advice, especially for folks that are new to the industry. All right, last question that I have for you then is you know, folks are thinking about, you know, we’ve just covered this whole range of topics but if they want to find more out about what you do, and connect with you is the best way for that to happen.
Victoria Pelletier
I have a personal website which is victoria-pelletier.com where my articles all the public speaking I do everything can be housed there. Of course, you could just Google me I’ve worked hard on my brand and I’m the majority of the first 10 pages probably that comes up.
Scott Ritzheimer
Awesome, awesome. And will add I will add the URL to the show notes. For everyone who is listening wherever you’re at you’ll be able to find them there it also be on the website and Victoria. Well, thank you so much for being here. It’s such a privilege having you on the show and for everyone listening your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Victoria Pelletier
Victoria is a 20+ year Corporate Executive and Board Director – she is currently a Managing Director at Accenture. Nicknamed the “Turn Around Queen” by former colleagues and employers, Victoria inspires and empowers her team and clients to change mindsets and drive growth in business, leadership and culture.
Victoria was recognized as one of the Top 30 Most Influential Business Leaders in Tech by CIOLook, 2021’s Top 50 Business Leader in Technology by Insight Magazine and a Mentor of the Year by Women in Communications & Technology in 2020. HSBC bank awarded her the Diversity & Inclusion in Innovation award in 2019 and she was IBM’s #1 Global Social Seller ranked by LinkedIn in 2019 and 2020.
Want to learn more about Victoria Pelletier? Check out her website at https://victoria-pelletier.com/
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