DiversifyHER
DiversifyHER is a Gen Z-led podcast where I, Raven Heyward, engage with leaders to discuss the importance of representation. My mission is to inspire young girls, create meaningful mentorship opportunities, and explore ways to empower and uplift individuals in various industries and leadership roles.
DiversifyHER
EP 45: Purpose Meets Profession with Neville Poole
Listen as Raven Heyward, founder and host of DiversifyHER, converses with Neville Poole. With a proven track record at global powerhouses including IBM and Accenture, Neville has partnered with Fortune 50/100 executives across financial services, retail, insurance, logistics, and hospitality sectors to implement lasting organizational change. Her expertise in operating model design and leadership coaching has made her a sought-after advisor for companies navigating complex transformations.
Prior to fluent, Neville served as Managing Director and Business Agility Practice Leader at Accenture, where she led the largest pure-play global agile consultancy. At IBM, she was a key leader on the company's largest modernization project while serving as Partner and Enterprise Agility Strategy Leader.
Bringing extensive education and professional credentials in organizational transformation and leadership development, Neville balances her executive career with community leadership, having served on the United Way Board of Directors and as chairperson for Southern Fried Agile for five years.
Connect with Neville:
Hello everyone and welcome to Diversify Her Podcast. I'm your host, raven Hayward, and today I'm honored to have Ms Neville Poole. This is a true testament to the power of connections and of networking. In March of 2023, I had the pleasure of meeting her in Atlanta, georgia, at the Fortitude Collective Unbossed but Bothered Conference and instantly made a connection with her. Little did I know I would soon become really good friends with her daughter, nia, who is on NC State's track and field team. And now I'm hosting Ms Neville on my podcast today.
Speaker 1:She is a true, authentic and compassionate executive with over two decades of experience transforming organizations through innovative operating models and leadership development. As CEO of Fluent, neville guides her leaders and team to work together more effectively, bringing their best work to the world. With a proven track record at global powerhouses, including IBM and Accenture, she has partnered with Fortune 50, 100 executives across financial services, retail, insurance, logistics and hospitality sectors to implement lasting organizational change. Her expertise in operating model designs and leadership coaching has made her a sought-after advisor for companies navigating complex transformations. Beyond her professional achievements, she treasures her role as a wife of 22 years and mother to two daughters, one a freshman collegiate athlete and the other a soon-to-be collegiate athlete in her senior year of high school, bringing the same authenticity and compassion to her family life that distinguishes her leadership approach. Thank you so much for joining me today. Ms Neville, how are you doing? Thank you.
Speaker 2:Raven, I'm great. It's so good to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm super excited.
Speaker 1:Of course, I'm super excited for today's episode as well. I'd love for you to just first start off by telling us a little bit more about your journey and what led you to where you are today.
Speaker 2:Okay, I would love to, and first I'm super proud of you. I was so impressed when I met you down in Atlanta, and then the fact that you and Nia met is great, and now I'm here with you, so I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 1:Thank you Okay.
Speaker 2:So I started my career in banking. I became a banking center kind of a consumer banker was what they called it at the time, where you sit at the desk and you open up accounts in my senior year of college. So I was at Tennessee State University in Nashville and I just kind of I had a job at like the limited my sophomore year, but then I was like you know what? I want to do something else. And so I was like I kind of want a real job, don't know why. I think it was just kind of in my DNA and so that's where I started into banking. And then from there I moved to Charlotte after graduation, immediately stayed with Nations Bank at the time, went through a bunch of acquisitions with the bank and became Bank of America, and so that banking kind of foundation was my forte into serving people because right, when you're in banking, it's all about I was in the banking center, so it was all about serving customers. You're in banking, it's all about I was in the banking center, so it was all about serving customers. And then from there I went into, decided that you know, I kind of want to do something different. And there was a company that was very small at the time LendingTree, lendingtreecom and I decided to take my banking knowledge to IT, and so the balance of IT and banking is how, the kind of really how the how my career started, um. So at LendingTree I got the experience of going through an IPO. The company went public. It was the coolest experience I could have asked for at 24 years old, 25 years old, um. So it was super cool.
Speaker 2:And then, as the years progressed, I kept the balance between banking and IT and then decided to get married and still at that time I had moved over back to Bank of America and I was in strategy, which was very interesting because I didn't have a strategy background. My major was in marketing and economics, so strategy was new to me. But because of my experiences in banking and IT, it was a good fit. And so once I kind of got through that part of my career, they did a. The bank, as it does, frequently has a round of we're going to downsize, right, and so I was a part of that and I got impacted by that, and so that's when I decided to start having a kid and after I had Nia, after probably six months, I knew I needed to go back to work. It was just me. I have really great friends that are stay-at-home moms, but it was just I needed to go back to work and so I decided to get into consulting.
Speaker 2:Because at that point it was like, well, to go back to work. And so I decided to get into consulting. Because at that point it was like, well, I like doing all these different things, but I don't want to be somewhere forever. You know, I kind of want to get a lot of different experiences. So I started with a local consulting firm here in Charlotte called North Highland, and they had a local, regional model, right, and so I would. I didn't have to travel, so that was the benefit of that, and so started into consulting that way.
Speaker 2:And then I got introduced to an agile agility which turned my entire world upside down from a, from a how you can deliver software in a better way and then from consulting I just stayed the. I stayed the course, and so from small consulting I moved to a firm that was really about agile transformation, and so they were my coaches when I was consulting in a very traditional waterfall way at Lowe's, where we were doing kind of Lowe'scom was reinventing itself, and so the coaches were coaching us to deliver this in a different way, called Agile, and so I got the hang of it and I really enjoyed it and they were like you would be a good consultant, agile consultant. I'm like, no, I just learned it. You know, I don't know anything about it, but it felt very natural for me in the way that they work, and so I said okay, and then from there I went to work for that consulting firm, which got acquired by another consulting firm, which got acquired by Accenture, and so I was at Accenture, became a managing director. I was there for six years.
Speaker 2:I learned more in those six years that I probably learned in my entire career. It was life-changing for me at Accenture. It was an amazing experience. And then, after that six years, I knew I wanted to do something else and I got approached by IBM and so I went to IBM to work in strategy, enterprise strategy. It was a great experience, but it was something. There was a and I'll talk about this a little bit later but there was a turning point for me at IBM where I knew that I love consulting, but not at that scale. I wanted to do something a little bit more, a little bit more boutique-y, a little bit smaller, and so some friends of mine started a company called Institute Agility at the time and asked me if I wanted to run the company, and so I became the CEO back in 2022. Yeah, 2022.
Speaker 1:And here I am. Wow. So, with all of these different experiences that you've had and I know that you've held high impact roles in both tech and consulting you mentioned that kind of coming together and bridging, which I think is basically what that field is. Now today, we see how AI is integrated in almost every single company, almost every single role. So what has it been like navigating leadership as a Black woman in these spaces?
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting because so, Raven, if you don't know, I am a I'm a very optimistic person, so the glass is always half full. It's just how I choose to approach my life. And so, as I was going through, um financial services, I was it was a lot more, um, black women in financial services at the time, Um, so it didn't feel, uh, there was a lot of women, because in the banking centers, if you notice, if you go into any banking center, which people really don't go into banking centers much anymore but there's usually female tellers, female managers. There's men too, but the female component was pretty comfortable, right In financial services. Now the pivot into technology was completely different, because there were really not a lot of women at all and then there were definitely not a significant amount of Black women in technology, valuable in bringing a different perspective to problem solving, and I just leaned into that. So, as I started to progress through my career, it was less and less women, less and less Black women.
Speaker 2:But for me, it didn't really feel. I didn't feel bad about it. It didn't feel lonely at all because I felt like I was on mission to help these people, that I'm working with Black men, white men, black men, white women about the perspective that I bring and how we need to bring more diverse perspectives to the conversations, and so it wasn't really the navigating for me wasn't at the forefront of my mind. I was more consumed with almost proving myself I'm here, I'm supposed to be here. Yes, I had doubts in my mind, I had imposter syndrome, all of the things, but I still felt like I was supposed to be there and I was there for a reason, and that's kind of how I just kept my mind on track as it related to not seeing myself in meetings and in different forums as a Black woman.
Speaker 1:I think that's a very good perspective and I almost feel that I'm sort of the same, especially being at Keenan Flagler at UNC. You know they definitely have gotten more diverse throughout the years, but sometimes in my classes I will take note that I may be the only Black woman in there, but it's not like I'm the only person of color in there, like I'm the only woman in there. So I still don't feel alone necessarily in those aspects. But I want to yes, very good especially in today's world.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to talk now more about mentorship and sponsorship. I know that their crucial career kind of advances, advances and I want to know who helped you open doors in your career and as you excelled, and how do you pay it forward today.
Speaker 2:Okay, great question, because there's a very important role that mentors and sponsors play in your life and as you develop your career. So when I was at the bank, when I was a senior in college and I was working at Nations Bank, I had a mentor. His name was Maxie Washington. I'll never forget Maxie Black man. He would come downstairs I'm in the banking center, that's in the lobby and he just came over one day I was just like what are you doing?
Speaker 2:You look so young. And I was like, well, and I told him my story and from there he just became a mentor, in that he would help me, he would take me to lunch and ask me questions about how do I see myself in the future. So that was very important to me, especially in that phase of my life. I was a senior in college. I wasn't sure exactly like if I was going to stay in Nashville or move somewhere else, and he just started to open my eyes. So that was my mentor.
Speaker 2:But when I got to Accenture well, I would say before Accenture Solutions IQ, which was one of the firms that I was at when that Accenture acquired the CEO his name was John Rudd John. To this day actually we were texting yesterday. He was a sponsor, a true sponsor. He made sure that I had the opportunities that would afford me to be seen and he could only give me those opportunities. He was the CEO of the company. He was about to sell his company to Accenture. He saw something in me that he believed I could, would grow and I could become a senior executive, because that's what I wanted to be. And so he, as a sponsor, john, made sure that I was in the right seat, in the right seat. Now I had to show up, right, I had to be Neville. I had to demonstrate my knowledge base, demonstrate my leadership stance. So he was always come on, neville, I want you to go to this meeting with me. Come on, neville, I want you over here. And when I was at Accenture, I was literally in meetings with Julie Sweet the.
Speaker 2:CEO, and it was. She noticed me, we talked, she was about to become my mentor. He truly believed in me. And one thing he said to me that I'll never forget. He truly believed in me and one thing he said to me that I'll never forget he had promoted me to run the Agile Transformation offering at Accenture inside of technology, which was our business unit, and he said don't let anybody tell you otherwise, but you deserve to be in that seat because of what you do and what you've done and who you are, and so that's a sponsor. He opens up doors. And so I think about it from my perspective of when I was at IBM.
Speaker 2:It was very important to me to make sure I could kind of see who did I believe could just needed the space right. They did good work, they proved themselves. How do I find those people? And so that's one thing I'm always doing. I'm always looking for someone that is already demonstrating that they have a desire, because you can't give people the desire to do something right. They have to want to do it. You can give them the opportunity and the venues and the space to do that, but they got to want it, you know.
Speaker 2:And so there's a young man he is. I met him through Nia in high school last year and he is all about business consulting. That is what he wants to do, and Ikena is probably one of the most driven young men I've ever met and he wanted to intern with me last year and so free internship. He's like I just want to learn, I don't want to get paid, I just want to learn. And he stayed with me for it was about a week.
Speaker 2:It was like a program that they did at the school, and so now he's at Michigan State and we talk probably every couple of months and he's coming home and he gave me some feedback on some of the videos I did on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:He's like I just wanted to give you some tips and I'm just like, wow, so I feel a pull to him to help. So he's going to come and intern with me this summer. He wants to be there, he wants to do it, and so I am a big believer of investing my knowledge and my time with young people that have a desire to do something different and to change the world and to be different and have excitement about what they want to do versus and there's nothing wrong with if this is I want to. There's a trade that I want to do, but in business it's a different mentality, right, because there's so broad. And so when you find people, when I see people young people like you, like Akena that are really kind of creating the spaces for themselves, I'm all in, like I will help you, I will introduce you to everybody you need to meet, and that's a commitment that I have for myself, but that's how I pay it forward.
Speaker 1:And I think that's so amazing and it's such a blessing too to be a young person entering in the field and having those network and having those connections, because I feel that a lot of the time especially just me being at school and being surrounded by peers who wanna do similar things sometimes they feel that they're lacking that kind of support or those connections and so then it's turning them into oh, I have to go to these networking events because I just need one connection, Like I just need to do this, and they almost are just so stressed and it's so high anxiety induced to not know what you're doing for the summer, to not have a person that you feel like you can go to.
Speaker 1:So it really is such a blessing and I'm so thankful that I met you and it truly is just a testament of you are where you're supposed to be. Everything happens for a reason, because, truly, me going on that trip with Alicia, it was like a last minute decision. She was like oh, I have an extra ticket, If you want to come, you can come. I called my parents. I was like can I go? Can I get a flight? And in two days I was in Atlanta. So just the fact that things were able to work that way. It truly is a testament of God. Really does everything for a reason, and your plan and your path is for you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am. So at the intersection now of innovation and inclusion and just with what our society and what's happening to our world, I want to know is there any? Because you are optimistic, so is there anything that excites you most about the future of work and where we're heading, despite you know our current presidency?
Speaker 2:Well, I will tell you, I am super excited about the future of work because I believe we finally got to a point where with, I think, relations relationship is going to really drive business going forward, because AI is giving us all the knowledge we need. It gives us everything data, every know. I'm a big believer of data-driven decisions Every day. Any data element you need you can find right. Any approach to a problem you can pretty much find it if you ask the right questions. In whatever AI system you prefer, the biggest thing is being able to take those answers and make it relational to a particular area of a problem that you're trying to solve.
Speaker 2:So when you think about consulting which is what I I believe that, if I believe that consulting is like physicians, I feel like we're like physicians. So a friend of mine, she's a doctor, she's a liver doctor and we're always talking about she's like diagnosing. I'm like what's your day? Like I go in, I read my reports, I diagnose challenges, I create a plan, I make sure the client knows the plan and I check in with them on the plan. Consulting is similar but different. I'm diagnosing a problem and in that diagnosis I'm building a relationship with executives. There are so many. You got Accenture, you got McKinsey, you got Bush, you got so many consulting firms out there. What sets me apart, and so I believe that the future of work is about relationships, because a client of mine can go anywhere and get the services that I offer them, especially now with AI.
Speaker 2:Right, I know people that they can go on. They'll just put a whole problem statement in AI and get the answer back and just tweak it a little bit and give it to the client. Yeah, you could do that, but the real value is in the relationship. So if you and I have a relationship, Raven, and you need help, support, we build a trusting relationship. You're going to come to me first, right, we're going to have a dialogue around what you need to do and then I can either figure out if it's something that I can help you with or help you find the right partner for that problem.
Speaker 2:So I am excited about the future of work because I believe that relationship building, connection, is going to be how we solve the world's toughest problems, and we have technology that can do whatever we tell it to do. It can do things that we don't even tell it to do. It knows before we know, but what it can't do is build relationships, trusting connections that help us co-create problems together. So one of the things that I'm really a big proponent of is design thinking. So design thinking in a way, it brings thoughts together, it brings people together, and that connection and that relationship is what I believe is really going to transcend this future of work that we're going through now.
Speaker 2:Whether it's at the team level, whether it's at the executive level, it doesn't matter. If you can't work with people in teams, then I think you're going to have a problem. But if you can and you understand how the power of diverse thought is going to get you to a better outcome, then that's what I get excited about. And because relationships have always been a real easy thing for me, and so I've always needed to like use that as my superpower in consulting. And now I think that that's just now. You there's no, you don't really have a choice. You can't go in somewhere being a jerk and think you're gonna, you're gonna win when you got somebody like me coming behind you and I am I am all about building a relationship with you. We don't have to be friends, but I need you to trust me. I want you to trust me, and that means a lot to me. So that's that's what I get really excited about as it relates to the future of work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know we talk a lot about that in just my classes. You know your soft skills versus your hard skills. And this is our last week of class. So actually yesterday, at the end of my lecture, my professor, instead of reviewing course content, he decided to give us, you know, a life lesson and lecture and give us advice about going into the future and everything. And he was like you know, of course it was an operations class. So he was like you know, of course you know everything that I've taught you.
Speaker 1:Yes, it'll be useful if you want to go into operations and operations affects everything but at the end of the day, you know, it's important about being a good person and having those soft skills, because when you're in interviews, they already know your resume, they already know what skills you have, but in the interview, they really want to get to know you and to know how well you work with the team and how you go about solving different problems. So you have to be a good team player, very similar to what you were saying about establishing those relationships. So I think that that's important and I like how, at least in my classes, our professors are really highlighting that and making sure that students know those skills as we're entering the workplace.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to hear that because I mean I haven't been in the classroom in a very long time so I wasn't sure how course curriculum kind of addresses some of those things. But the three KDR that's something that I live by. Everything I do is KDR. It's kind, it's direct and it's respectful. And so a lot of times the KDR for me comes into play when I'm giving feedback or you got to, when you're having interactions with people. You know, sometimes people think that if you're not, you got to be nice. And it's not about being nice, it's about being kind, direct and respectful. And if you can check the box on those three things and you bring your knowledge to the table, you're good.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. I know that you've been deeply involved in communities like women in tech and civic leadership, so how do you balance purpose and profession, and why is that so important to you?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say I used to struggle with this because I would always separate my profession from my purpose, my profession from my purpose, and I really want to. You know, one of the things that I was really toying around with is figuring out what part of me is so what purpose do I have that I can actually bring to my profession? And I love people. I want people to succeed and I love people. I want people to succeed. No-transcript, don't work hard. And so I know that I have this unbelievable drive in my soul, in my spirit, to see people win and to see people be successful. But also I love seeing people put in the hard work, and so I knew that at one point I said you know what? I'm going to open up a personal training studio because I want to, for women, obese women, because I want to give them the support that they need to win right, to have the tools that they need in a very safe space. And so I started thinking about the things that I'm thinking, the things that made that true for me. Well, it's psychological safety, it's support, it is encouragement, and those things are my purpose. That's how I show up every day, and so I use that in my career. So when I'm consulting with executives, I'm thinking about those things. I need to give them psychological safety. I need to give them a place that they can be open and free to speak and trust and I can help them with some of their challenges and help them win.
Speaker 2:And so when you think about your purpose and your profession, it's like the job is the job. It's how do you bring over the things that get you excited, the things that you believe that God put inside of you, that you don't know where it came from. You just need to do it and you need to have it. How do you marry those two things? And for some people it's not necessarily possible from a professional standpoint, so they find other outlets to be able to do that, whether it's. You know, I used to be on the board of direct, on the board of the United Way. I had a nonprofit for a little while. So you can always find ways to intersect your purpose and your profession.
Speaker 2:But I think it's really important that if you can think about the things that give you that kind of that excitement and you morph those into what you do every day and that makes work not feel like work. It feels like I love what I do. I have the co-founder of my company. She's retiring at the end of this week and she's like never, when you're going to retire, I'm like I have no idea, like I'm not even thinking about that. In fact, I just applied to do some professor, to be an adjunct professor at a local university, because I just love to give this knowledge and this experience that God gave me. It's not for me, I mean, it's for me in the moment, but it's really for someone else, and so I just feel like those two things, if you can identify what they are and weave them into what you do, you will be able to have a very long and happy because happiness is a thing happy career.
Speaker 1:I think that you're basically my inspiration now.
Speaker 1:Just hearing how excited and seeing how excited you're getting, just talking about the work you do, that's truly a blessing.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of the times people they do work because they just need to be able to have the money to live and, to you know, do what they want to do.
Speaker 1:But I think the fact that you're able to find enjoyment in your work and you are able to have your purpose is very important and I know that at the bigger firms I did some visits when I studied abroad, some visits um when I studied abroad we went to the netherlands and we were at deloitte and they'll do different sort of um, like projects that they'll work on with certain companies because they're really big on sustainability. So that was the way that some of the employees said that they were able to feel fulfill their purpose and their job like they do their daily job, but then they also are able to do like some pro bono work where they are helping out this local company with their sustainability actions or initiatives. So I think even just ways that companies are able to integrate that now more, because they do understand that you know people still want to feel like they have a purpose other than this their day to day, nine to five, which is important.
Speaker 2:And I think it's why it's important that when you, when you do go, you know, decide where you want to, where you want to spend your, your time, especially coming out of college. Many if you're, if you're going into consulting or any big company at this point they're most of them are being very, um, transparent about their, their vision and their mission and so the mission of the company. You want to identify with it. You know, I mean, when you first get out of college you're looking for a job. So you're kind of not being like super picky you know you shouldn't be, you want to get the experience, but at some point the identification of the mission of the company.
Speaker 2:Does that speak to me? Does it speak to my core values? Because I have a small consulting firm. We're very big on our core values and our core values are we talk about them from the point we interview a new person to when we get a new client. So our clients know our values. So if you work with us, you know what's important to us and it kind of eliminates a lot of the, the asks that are not in alignment, you know, with what we believe.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I agree, which is very important. I'm glad that you have the luxury and the ability to do that with your company, because I know at least just consulting. Whenever you hear someone say that they're a consultant or going to consulting, I feel like they sometimes have just this bad rep Just because of, like, how competitive everything is and that's what I'll be doing this summer with Visa in Atlanta.
Speaker 1:I'm on their consulting and analytics team, which I'm really excited about and because they're not known to be a consulting company kind of similar to what you were talking about before, which is why, like you didn't necessarily, like you did, enjoy IBM, but, like you know, you want it to do like the smaller boutique kind of consulting. I'm kind of glad because it seems like, at least from when I was doing my interviews, that's kind of how Visa is, because their program is still I believe it's no older than 10 years of like the consulting branch. So I'm really excited to see how I enjoy that this summer.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:So now that we're coming to the end of my episode, I have the signature question that I ask, which is what's one piece of advice you would give Gen Z? To go out and diversify themselves. Learn how to accept feedback, learn how to ask for feedback. It is so important to your development as a leader to always be in a state of growth mindset, always look to continuously improve, and the way you do that is by asking for feedback and accepting feedback, especially the feedback that you don't like. Don't create an excuse for it. Or well, this happened.
Speaker 2:No, take the feedback, digest it, learn from it, determine what of it you can create your own improvement backlog of things to help you develop as a leader, because the more feedback you can take, the more you're going to develop yourself as a leader, and that as a leader, because the more feedback you can take, the more you're going to develop yourself as a leader, and that, as a developed leader, you can stand in the midst of challenging times, great opportunities.
Speaker 2:You want to be resilient, right, and so getting feedback and asking for feedback is a crucial leadership skill that a lot of leaders do not leverage for themselves, and it creates blind spots for you where you think you're doing this and people are perceiving you as like, not sure that they realize that this is what that feels like for other people. So that is the biggest piece of feedback I could give Gen Z anybody to be honest, and especially young professionals, because sometimes you want to prove yourself right and so we're afraid to ask for feedback because we think it's a sign of I don't know what I'm doing. If any person comes to me and asks me for feedback, I'm all with them at that point, because now I know that you are invested in your professional development and you don't think you know everything, because we all have blind spots, we all have areas that we just do not see about ourselves and that will really help build you as a strong, impactful, influential, diverse leader If you know how to do that and you start doing that early.
Speaker 1:That's a really good piece of advice. Thank you so much and I'm definitely going to use that with my internship this summer. So thank you again so much for coming on the podcast. It was long overdue. I'm so glad that we could get the episode done. Thank you everyone for listening and tuning in to Diversify Her. I'll make sure that I have Ms Neville's LinkedIn attached in the bio below so you can connect with her. If you have any follow-up questions or want to connect with her, I'll be sure to have her information. Thank you all again so much for listening and I'll catch you next time on Diversify Her.