Page 80 - Powerlist 2019 - Digital Edition

Paulette Rowe

n expert in banking and payments,
Paulette has built a strong reputation
Aduring her roles with General Electric,
the RBS Group and Barclays, as its chief of
Barclaycard Payment Solutions. She is now
Global Head, Payments and Financial Services
Partnerships, at Facebook and is in this year’s
Powerlist Top 10.
She says: “An example of an issue you encounter
as a female leader, and frankly especially as a black
woman, is how male colleagues often perceive
‘edge’ in their female counterparts. Edge is the
ability to make bold and tough calls. Having
the confidence to hold your ground in pursuit
of a vision or plan that you know will work or is
important, because you’ve done your research or
have identified a new opportunity is a key trait of
a successful leader. However, it remains the case
that ‘edge’ is more likely to be seen as positive and
rightly admired in a man, but a woman displaying
the same behaviour is too often judged harshly.
“I don’t always get it right, but I try to be
conscious of those ‘edge’ moments. Over my
career, I’ve realised I need to invest more time to
make sure that internal stakeholders understand
my motivations and that our goals are aligned.
This involves being more open generally – you
have to build trust. The better your colleagues
and managers know you, the more likely they are
to trust you, recognise you as a team player and
assume positive intent. That way they are more
likely to support you to seize that opportunity to
run with the ball and make your mark.
“When I joined General Electric after business
school, the company had established the 4Es
– energy, energise, execution and edge – as a
way to measure leadership potential. They really
resonated with me and I’ve evaluated myself
against the 4Es ever since. The other extremely
useful model I adopted there was PIE. The theory
behind PIE is that while performance, image
and exposure are all critical to business success,
many women fall in to the trap of focusing almost
entirely on performance and don’t appreciate
how much weight is often given in the hiring and
promotion decision to the other two areas – in Seize the
particular exposure and executive sponsorship.
“I recently moved to big technology at Facebook. opportunity to
Although I thoroughly enjoyed my years in financial
services, part of me has wondered whether I did run with the ball
the right thing joining a bank when there are other and make your
sectors where the business culture is arguably more
inclusive of gender and race. Of course there is mark
still huge room for improvement in the technology
sector, but I am interested to see how much I can
contribute working in a very different corporate
culture. And I guess that links to my message.
We owe it ourselves to find the sector/company/
culture or manager that allows us to be our best
and most authentic selves. Talented people are
likely to push through at any company, but in
the right environment your talents and passion
will shine even brighter and potentially take you
further [and faster] than you thought possible.”

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