Credera Hosts Annual All Forum Event at the Ritz Carlton Dallas for Executive Peer Learning

Credera Team

Credera Hosts Annual All Forum Event at the Ritz Carlton Dallas for Executive Peer Learning

On August 25, 2022, around 100 executives gathered at the Ritz Carlton Dallas for Credera’s All Forum Event 2022. This is Credera’s seventh year to host this event, but the first time in person since 2019. Members of Credera’s 10 Strategic Forums and guests came together for an afternoon of speakers, table discussions, a panel interview, and valuable connections.

The topic of the day was “The New Executive Role: From Culture Builder to ROI Deliverer & Everything in Between.” In today’s world of interconnectivity between work and home, business meetings and background noise, professional goals and political turmoil and personal health, the executive role carries far more responsibility today than ever before. Whether a chief marketing officer, chief information officer, chief innovation officer, chief diversity officer, or another executive role, attendees discussed their current challenges, found commonalities, and shared experiences.

“Expanding Role, Evolving Impact”

Kicking off the afternoon with the keynote presentation, Credera’s Global CEO and President Justin Bell and Chief Diversity Officer and Partner Nickoria Johnson discussed the executive’s expanding role and evolving impact. By sharing Credera’s journey of responding to the many global challenges in the past three years, their lessons learned resonated with many of the leaders in attendance.

Ultimately, as the role of business leaders expands, their impact also expands and leads to greater opportunity to impart change in our communities and nations.

“Restoring Trust at the Inflection Point”

Next, Craig Coffey, founder and president of Way Maker Leadership, shared his views on restoring trust. Based on his experience, he shared how being relational over transactional is key to building trust. Employees across all demographics value empathy, respect, vulnerability, and “having the conversation even if you don’t have the answers.” To prevent “quiet quitting,” or the practice of shirking responsibilities due to lack of commitment, leaders should invest the time and energy to drive dialog with their teams, develop their talent, frequently give recognition, and promote healthy boundaries.

“Innovating Teams Beyond ‘Fit’”

Attendees then reflected on innovation beyond ‘fit’ as led by Summer Wright Collins, assistant vice president of design and innovation at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. The key ingredient she found for innovation: diversity. Upon forming a diverse team, she found it important to build the organizational culture so employees actively seek the rich insights of their unique team members. In effect, this shifts any “unrealized” benefits of diversity to unparalleled outcomes and success. As senior leaders, it’s important to ask yourself the question, “How can I learn from the experts in the room who are not me?”

“Exploring the New Executive Role”

Building on the theme of the new executive role, a panel of four diverse executives shared their perspectives: Alison Gladwin, chief marketing and administration officer of Sunoco LP; Jyoti Lynch, chief information officer of European Wax Center; Kellie Romack, senior vice president of digital employee experience of ServiceNow; and Mike Garcia, senior vice president of technology strategy and portfolio of McKesson. Each described the new executive role in a word or two: “hope” (Gladwin), “curiosity and resilience” (Romack), “humble and confident” (Garcia), and “empathy” (Lynch). In the words of Gladwin, “Our job as executive leaders is to offer hope.”

“Finding Wisdom & Facing Decision Fatigue”

To round out the afternoon with the topic of wisdom and decision fatigue, Will Stacy IV, executive director of Chevrolet China of General Motors, shared tips for making wise decisions. He empathized with the sentiment of more decisions being required than ever before, but shared hope that leaders can listen to their teams and make confident decisions based on their open dialogues.

Moving Forward

Members of Credera’s 10 Strategic Forums will get that chance for dialogue in their regular forum meetings that resumed in October. Some forums are also recruiting additional engaging members to add value throughout the year.

If you are interested in learning more about Credera’s Strategic Forums, reach out to Allison De La Torre, allison.delatorre@credera.com.

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