B (3:34)

Victor, it seems like you carried this like, for like decades. Oh, I did your armor like you like Joan of arc for like 20 years.

A (3:45)

Yeah, I did unknowingly. So I've, I've. People would have always stated I'm incredibly resilient, having dealt with a lot even professionally, the number of mergers and acquisitions and restructures and all the things. And so. But for me, I would never show vulnerability for a long time. I would never even talk about where it came from, like what the circumstance was behind it. So that was, that was a shift at some point. It probably the shift for me wasn't, quite frankly, until like, I started it in my late 20s and into my early 30s. And so, as you said, decades worth of trauma that I like was, you know, not really dealing with in the way I should. And so I needed to learn how to be healthy, how to have a healthy level of resilience, because we're all going to continue to. And we're living in a world now where, whether it's, you know, macro economics, the wars that are out there, whatever it is, I mean, we need to be incredibly agile dealing with a significant amount of change, but it just requires a high level of resilience. I think we need to do that in the right way.

B (4:48)

No 100%. And how are you able to become more vulnerable or just be able to get out of your armor or your Iron Maiden Persona? Because it's a process.

A (4:59)

Yeah. Yeah, it is. So like I said, there's a multi step for me from understanding your goals, being really self Aware and reflective, having an amazing community around you, giving yourself permission to fail. There's a bunch of steps that I think are important around that. But that said, that doesn't solve for the vulnerability piece to look very, like, squarely at the woman that stared across the mirror for myself and say, like, I need to be strategic. I need to be intentional about showing up very differently. And it was not natural or comfortable, but I actually realized I did a disservice to, like, the. Whether it's the people I worked with, the friends I had by not being as vulnerable. So I just needed to start doing it one, like, one step at a time, start to tell the story, start to show some emotion. And it, like, the world opened up when I did that. Like, the transformation I saw on the relationships I had, the connections that were built, the trust that was built by doing that, that made me recognize I needed to do more of it. So now I'm probably on the other end of the spectrum where, like, I share very openly, I'm incredibly authentic, which means there's a significant amount of vulnerability, there's emotion that gets shown. Doesn't mean I'm still not the badass, as you said. Like, and I do what I need to do from a work perspective. But how do you bal. Balance that with this very different kind of, you know, humanity, and particularly from a leadership standpoint.

B (6:17)

Yeah, I think it's. It's so important. But I'm just curious. When you were showing up, did you get any feedback from leadership, like, oh, you people think you're cold, or you should open up? Or did it show up, like, in performance reviews? You know, in performance reviews, sometimes you have a 360 degrees. I remember at Deloitte, I would have 360 degrees. And, like, there's always people who would be like, are you wearing a mask? Or people want to get to know you, or did that come up?

A (6:42)

I did. I mean, the. The Iron Maiden came up. I first learned I had that nickname. I think I was 28 years old. Now I will tell your listeners, I became an executive at 24. I became the chief operating officer for an outsourcing company, which was a huge stretch role for me at that time. And beyond the fact that I had this trauma, I don't think I'd fully processed in a healthy way. I was the only woman, and I was the youngest by two. At least two decades. So that further made me think I needed to be. Wear the mask, not be vulnerable, not show any softness at all. I heard that nickname, and initially I thought it was because I make very difficult decisions. I've had to do restructures, and I'd already done it at that point in my 20s. The moment that really got me is talking to a colleague at work about what we'd done on a Monday, what we'd done on the weekend. And I said I'd seen some movie in the theater, and I was falling crying, and she. She looked at me and she's like, oh, my God, Vic. She said, I thought you'd be the type of person who'd laugh at people who cried at movies. That was the moment that got me because that is not who I am. Like, I cry at the Humane Society commercials.

B (7:53)

So. So people didn't know the real you because you had this. This very thick armor.

A (7:59)

Yeah. So I needed to learn to show up differently. It didn't feel. It didn't. I was worried what would people think about me? Because, yes, I've heard there's less so now. But, you know, they're. You know, they're the view of women in the workplace who show up, you know, very strong. There's other nicknames. The B word, the D. Like, I. I've heard it. I've heard it all.

B (8:18)

The resting be, the resting be face. I heard that. Oh.

A (8:24)

So it. For me, it was like a balance of, like, I don't want to show emotion because I don't want to be. Seem too soft. But then on the other hand, I think I need to show up in, like, this very tough way because I'm, you know, a woman. Like, so it. It, it, you know, it was a challenge. But then I Ultimate just. I said, like, I want to be the kind of leader that I'd want to work for, period. And so I need to find what is that great mix. You can still be strong on high expectations and expecting excellent performance from your team, but you can also do that by being vulnerable, demonstrating emotion, demonstrating care and trust for, you know, with my team, and so figuring out what that balance is. But, yes, I've heard a lot of things. I've been told I'm. I'm a strong personality. I've always shown up with confidence. People equate that to many different things. You know, not having emotions. The B word comes up more time being called aggressive instead of being told I'm assertive. Some of that's. I've just eased into what I believe is the truly authentic version of Victoria. And there's no different version you're going to get of me in person versus what you see online versus what you see at work or with my friends.

B (9:34)

Yeah. My unsolicited opinion is that women are multifaceted. So I do think that women in leadership can show up in different ways. But there's countless studies that show that there's certain expectations that women should be more nurturing and not too aggressive because they, they, they still perceive as bossy. Anywho, I think there's something that you talked about and I read your biography that like you became a CEO at 24 years old and, and a CEO at 41 years old. So a couple of follow up questions. First, what's, what was the size of these companies? Because it's like this is humongous. How did you become a CEO at 24 and what was the size of the company that you were leading?

A (10:14)

Yeah, so that, that one for me, as I said earlier was a big stretch role for me. I worked in a bank when I was in university in their contact center which created just flexibility to work around my school schedule. But I got promoted through the ranks incredibly quickly. I ended up taking what I thought was going to be a year off before I went to law school. And I loved the business world and I went back. So I continued to, you know, be in a leadership role. Early days of digital banking, but also leading in their contact center. So I got recruited for this outsourcing role because of its contact center many banking clients. So I ticked the box. But it was still a stretch role for me because to that point I led operations. I hadn't led sales and marketing, HR and technology. But I showed up with again to the confidence. I showed up with an extreme amount of confidence and I did have some of the skills. But I do believe confidence equate in the eyes of many people is equated to competence. And so I think that's where they gave me the chance, the opportunity.

B (11:08)

But you have to be able to execute as well.

A (11:11)

Yes. And so I've always learned to build amazing teams around me, particularly making sure that we all have skillset and experience that complement others where our gaps would be. So I would say I was able to be successful. Yes, I brought a lot to the table, but I had an amazing team around me to the point of size. I don't remember what our revenue was, we're going back 25 years, but it was 6,000 person organization. So not insignificant. Although technically I, I reflect back. I bought my first company at 20, so I guess I was probably a CEO at 20. But I bought the casting agency that represented me I had been a part time actor throughout school and then I became president of a company at 35. It was a corporate travel company that was probably about 100 million in revenue. CEO at 41 was for another company that in this case I had acquired. It was a data and analytics company. I did not plan on running it as the CEO I was. The one company, corporate company I was working for was sold and I was planning to go to another company and there was a bit of a delay. So I ran it as its CEO before I sold that company. And it was only. It was fairly small. It was only a couple million in revenue, which I like. Big, hairy, meaty. So the size and scale of that was an amazing investment decision for me that I ultimately ended up running. And I doubled it in the time that I had it before I sold it. So now I run. I've always run in. In the B2B corporate professional services world typically run large P Ls. So everything from the $2 million to $4 billion I've now been accountable for.

B (12:43)

So it's a large joint. So how do you explain your success of like running like you acquired companies, you ran companies, you sold companies, you operated m and as at a very young age to now. So how you've talked about confidence and you talked about your ability also to build teams. What. What's your superpower or your zone of genius?

A (13:05)

So I build very strong teams which ultimately deliver. So I've got nicknames I am now proud of, although I wasn't proud of the iron maiden one. It was a call to action for me. But I've been called the turnaround queen. So I'm very comfortable taking distressed businesses or underperforming businesses and turning them around. But I do that through really solid execution. I have no fear in making the difficult decisions. I think you can treat people well even if you need to move them out of the organization or to different roles. I have never been afraid to do that. But I've also hired the right kind of team. So I almost maniacally focused on building the right kind of leadership teams with a mix of the right functional business expertise and the kind of leadership skills that I now lead with, not the iron maiden of the past. And so that bringing those teams together allowed me to be incredibly successful combined with, I think innately my DNA. Like I'm very a type. I know that will be shocking to you and your listeners. Incredibly.

B (14:16)

No way.

A (14:17)

I know. Shocked, shock. I'm incredibly driven. You know, I've always been competitive. Like I Set harder goals for myself. And like even when I go to the gym, no one knows I'm competing with them. But I'm looking around, I'm like, I'm going to be stronger than she is. Right. So I think that drive as well, you know, and the entrepreneurial spirit even. I've always like had the side hustle. Even though I'm a big corporate, you know, B2B girl. I've always built, bought companies and had that side. But I also think that that helps me in terms of my, my corporate career. So I think it's all of those things. There's no like silver bullet. It's a mix of those things that have allowed to do a lot and be somewhat successful.

B (14:54)

So when you talk about making very hard decisions, can you give me an example? Like you go into a company that's distressed, give me five examples of very hard decisions that you made.

A (15:05)

Oh, well, I've done probably more restructures than I can possibly count, but I've done everything from that there. There, there was a company I worked for almost 20 years ago now. I got relocated, I'm originally from Canada. I got relocated to the US for the first time. We had a joint vest, joint venture. We ended, we went rebranded, went public and acquired six companies in 18 months. And I had to do significant restructure to bring those teams together. And so I made some really difficult decisions around people who would either move to a lower level in the organization or ones I moved out of the organization. And in some cases I needed to make really strategic decisions to keep people who shouldn't have stayed in role because of their connection to the client or the client portfolios they've led. But there's one tough decision I made in this case was standing up to our North American CEO who wasn't prepared to make the bold moves. I was accountable for about 80% of our full time equivalent, our teams. He wasn't prepared to say no to the NBA basketball tickets. We had the golf memberships. And I'm like I'm not prepared to cut staff if we're not prepared to be bold and do that across all levels of the organization. So you know, that would be one to. I was working with a CEO and we needed to do a restructure. His board had mandated to take 30% of the operating costs out. So as I was building the new org structure and creating shared services teams and looking offshore, one of his direct reports that he'd been longtime friends with was going to be impacted and he wanted to Move her from a supplier relations team to be a chief marketing officer. That role happened to be vacant at the time, yet she had zero marketing experience.

B (16:46)

So you saw the bias and you were like, no, we have to make decisions that's good for the business and not based on relationships. So you wanted to run the business in a more efficient way and not based on.

A (16:55)

On who likes who and, well, and it, it's tough. I mean, I, I value loyalty. I'm, I'm loyal as well. But we need to do the right things for all of our stakeholders. So if you're a public company, you've got shareholders, you know, you have your clients and you have your employees, and there's a balance. But moving someone who's absolutely not qualified into a role purely because of loyalty is not doing the right thing for any of those stakeholders. And so I think you can make the right business decision and treat people well, even if you need to make a difficult business decision. So I'm one who will make those decisions, but I will also coach others, including the CEO, to do the same.

B (17:39)

And then what happened to this guy he didn't like?

A (17:41)

I actually explained, I told. I. I seem to pick up nicknames everywhere I go. I was called the CEO Whisperer as a result. So he did listen. Ultimately, a lot of the restructure happened. This was in the context. This is not a company I worked for. This is one I was working with on behalf of the consulting companies I worked, I worked for and successful enough that his competitor acquired their company. So that was a success. I'm, I'm also very values driven. So I've said no to doing work that are not aligned with my own values and what I stand for.

B (18:14)

What are your values?

A (18:16)

I'm very committed to, you know, doing, doing the right thing. I'm also very committed to. Although living in the US Talking about dei, that's like a dirty word or phrase right now.

B (18:27)

Yeah.

A (18:27)

A few years ago, I was working for a firm and I was asked to lead an engagement for a very large retail company in the US that was not known for its diversity or an inclusion. In fact, for both its employees and its customers, it was opposite their news headlines. So I think they had a bit of a PR campaign to try and improve those headlines. They hired a chief diversity officer, and we've been asked to lead an engagement around their DEI strategy. And I'm not one who says no to business. I didn't say that my company shouldn't do that work, but I believe the work that they were Doing was performative.

B (19:04)

Yeah. Like a lot of companies.

A (19:06)

And so I said, I'm not the person to lead that engagement.

B (19:10)

Yeah. Because there's no fundamental work, that transformation that's happening at the company.

A (19:14)

No, I don't believe it.

B (19:15)

I'm like, I'm not smoke and mirrors.

A (19:17)

Yeah. So I said, you know that. So that. But that's my value and belief system. And so I said I'm not going to be the one who leads that because I don't believe anything we put forward and is either going to be implemented or at a very surface level just to help improve their public reputation.

B (19:33)

Yeah. And people are going to catch it. Just like we're catching things right now when everybody's resending their efforts and people are tracking the dollars that are being spent. So, anywho. Okay, let's move on. So you talk about the whole human leadership. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that is when you work with organizations? How does it really look like?

A (19:57)

So for me, this is a little bit of what I've talked about in terms of my own leadership style around vulnerability. But for me, it's much more than that. And I. I shifted my own leadership style because I showed up in a way that wasn't authentic to who I actually was because I thought I needed to wear this mask. And what I realized is I've. I've subsequently built a very strong followership. People who have come company to company with me who would follow me into the proverbial fire, but they do that because we built it a trusted relationship. And so being a whole human leader, as I call it, is about showing up with a great deal of authenticity. That word is often abused, but authenticity. And that comes through what, by being vulnerable, Recognizing we don't check ourselves when we enter the workplace. Right. Our whole human selves shows up and our lived experiences and the stuff that may even happen on the weekend will influence. Influence how we show up at work. So being vulnerable around talking about our lived experiences, feeling a sense of belonging, to show up our true authentic selves. But it's also other things. Like I'm. I want to build a real relationship with those that I'm working with. And I want them to recognize, build trust with them. I want them to recognize that I care about who they are as a human. And in some cases that means if I know their career journey, their aspirations, or even their superpower in terms of what the work they do isn't aligned to the role they're in. Let me help you find that right. So building the right career path and sometimes that means I'm taking a superstar and moving them to a different role in the company I'm at. And sometimes it may actually mean leaving the company, but in doing that again they know that I'm, I have their back, so to speak. So that's what I mean by this whole human leader like recognizing the whole self that shows up, you know, and how do we build these real relationships with people doesn't mean there's again and there's no trade off for strong performance by being that kind of leader, you know, and sometimes it's saying hey, I don't know what I don't know or I can transparently tell you this much, I can't tell you all, but I commit to you that I will when I can. Like it's just even being open in those kinds of dialogues. So that, that's what I mean by it. And I, I saw an amplification of it coming out of COVID while during COVID Quiet, Quiet, quitting the great resignation and all those headlines. But you know, people were demanding more and different from their leaders.

B (22:22)

Yeah, I understand it. It's not self serving. It's really focused on the person, their career journey and their real aspirations and putting yourself aside even if it's detrimental to you at some point, if you lose a top performer, you might not be able to hit your goals initially, but it's going to be better for the person and better for the world. And so in the world of AI and AI transformation right now there's a lot of companies who are implementing change and you've been deemed a transformation expert going into companies and helping implement change management. How do you see that AI can be implemented in companies in a way that's seamless throughout the organization?

A (23:06)

I'm like living and breathing this right now. I currently work for a tech company. I lead all of the parts of the business that enables the value to be achieved by it. So leading value realization, leading change and adoption, leading workforce transformation and skilling. And so what I see, first of all, and it's interesting, there was a BCG case study or article that said when it comes to AI, they talked about it in 10, 20, 70, 10% of the cost slash value to be delivered is the algorithm itself. 20 is kind of the technology around it. Right. We need some security, we need some guardrails, that kind of thing. 70% is around the people and process. And so to achieve the outcomes that we want, the true value and the power of AI, you need to look at making sure is the organization ready for this kind. And I, I say I've got three A's, you know, there is alignment, but do you have the right business case? Is that the right thing? We want to be looking at bringing AI into. Are we aligned across the organization, business, technology and all the supporting functions around it. The next is adoption. We will not be successful with bringing AI in if we haven't successfully managed the change in the adoption. And that's more than just sending out a communication to the team. It's recognizing how the AI will impact the different user groups, the different Personas, how job titles and how it will be experienced in customizing the what and the communication for them and then the enablement. And for me a good example is if you're working in a company that uses Microsoft, Copilot is great as a tool, but not if you don't know how to use it effectively. You know, some enablement that needs to come. And actually my third A is ability. So some of that's enablement. But that's also around the need for businesses and leaders to look more at the, the skills that are required, not just the AI skills. The work is dramatically being transformed. So the work that remains requires a heightened level of certain types of skills. Actually the human power skills, right? Cognitive thinking, problem solving, empathy, et cetera. And so that's how I think we need to be thinking much more around AI and its effective use in workforces now.

B (25:28)

Yeah, I think that's a good point because I'm reading a lot of report and even Gartner talked about some of the risk of the implementation and integration in companies right now. Because a lot of people see it as a tool, but it's not a tool. It's how do you actually integrate it in the day to day and in the behavior. And how do you get people to actually evolve their behavior and want to adopt it? Not just a task force, but everywhere in the organization. How do you make it an addition to their day to day and to their workflow? How do you enable? How do you make their life better? And that takes time. Even if before it was AI, it was like the CRM and we know how long I've spent most of my career in sales, right? So just getting the sales reps, getting the sales reps to update the deal from stage to stage is like, oh my gosh, the number of things and emails that need to happen. So imagine if you add AI and you want to have them to update the gone calls and everybody's very suspicious. So there's a behavior that needs to happen and that's transformative across the organization. And that's just one thing, that's just one part of the organization. So thinking about all the transformation that has to happen, do you have any advice for organizations right now that are looking at transforming and talked about the aaa, but anything else that must they must keep in mind as they're ongoing these conversations, these endless conversations.

A (26:58)

So many things. I mean, first of all, I actually am talking to a lot of leaders about getting clarity around why and where they're, where they're thinking about. Interestingly, there's many who I just think haven't articulated the North Star like, are we doing this because everyone's jumping on the agent?

B (27:18)

Yes.

A (27:20)

Are we doing this because our customers are demanding it? They want, you know, a consumer grade experience like with Netflix or Amazon. Are we doing it for that reason? Are we doing it to take operational expense out of the business? The reality is it's probably both reasons, but getting clear on again, your purpose and your North Star around AI and then being really intentional around the use cases that you're going to build. And what I see is the businesses, hey, we need an AI bot for this. Well then they send it off to the technology team who then go and build it without continuing to engage with the business to understand, like, let's not automate a really poor process if it's not working. Let's optimize it first and how it should work. Because otherwise you can say standard operating procedure, but there's so many exceptions and tentacles off of that. Let's optimize that and understand what we want the experience to be customers or employees through the journey and build towards that. And then as we said, the change management, the adoption piece is critical. You can build a business case that says 80% of this is going to be automated. Well, but that means everyone's adopting it, there's no exceptions flowing out of the system, etc. So you know, get clear on North Star and vision the why work cohesively from a business and technology perspective and then make sure there's organizational readiness and adoption around the AI that's being implemented.

B (28:51)

Yeah, and I would add just making sure customers also on board because from a customer standpoint, every time I get on some bot, I'm highly disappointed. That's my two cents. Okay, I want to jump on one last question before the rapid fire. What have you learned from the most horrible leaders that, that you've encountered in your career? Because we can learn from them too.

A (29:16)

Well, I will tell you, I've never really had a good mentor in my career. That doesn't mean I haven't worked for some good leaders. Just I wouldn't necessarily call them my mentors. I have learned from the horrible leaders, truly that they become lessons for me in, in the type of leader I do not want to become. So there have been many. Now I've had like some really, really horrible ones, you know that, like the CEO that tried to sleep with me on a business trip or like those kind of ones.

B (29:46)

Never take a taxi with that one.

A (29:49)

Yeah, hopefully that one. But then I have, you know, others who, you know, you know, also working in a sales environment, people are always fighting for sales credit. And I've just seen like some really horrible behaviors in that. And so that for me is one I, I look at and I, I just, I don't operate in that way. And in fact, if anything, I've learned how to be a better communicator and leader of people by observing that and, you know, taking time to embrace them and say, this will get better. Here's what I'm going to do to see how I. And so for me, it's just trying to lead from the front. So I encourage people to not run away from all of those horrible leaders, but rather hopefully learn from them and choose to be different.

B (30:30)

Choose to be different. I love it. Okay, I'm going to pull my pink. Post it. For those who are watching in video Rapid Fire with Victoria Peltier, what is the biggest lie about success?

A (30:44)

It's not about climbing up the higher, like the corporate ladder, achieving a higher level of hierarchy or money.

B (30:52)

I don't think that's what is it about.

A (30:56)

I think you need to define what that is. So for me, what brings me personal or professional joy or happiness and that is about being the right kind of leader like that. That for me is success. When I have people who want to follow me because they've enjoyed working with me, that is success. I also love big hearing meaty problems. So give me a challenge to solve for and if I'm successful, that is success. I, I used to measure success in my twenties in the way I said is not. And so I, I come, I come at it with like personal experience ever learning what I think success really is.

B (31:29)

I love it. What is your cheat code to success?

A (31:34)

My cheat code? So I've learned, as I said, the things that don't bring me personal or professional joy or value, I don't do. I say no Some. Some has to get done or I delegate or I outsource. Otherwise I'm not doing it. That gives me the time and capacity to focus on other things that ultimately are part of my success equation.

B (31:55)

Okay, so say no to what you don't want to do, delegate or outsource. Awesome. What do you wish you knew at 20 years old that you know now regarding your career?

A (32:07)

Yeah, I think that the vulnerability piece is probably one of the greatest ones. I, I was afraid of it. I didn't know how much it could be a superpower.

B (32:17)

Okay, what is the one thing that the top 5% achievers does that the 95 ignores? That's very important.

A (32:28)

I don't know if they ignore. I think there's an extreme level of accountability that needs to come that comes with the top 5%. You know, I sign my social media posts with two hashtags, maybe others, but there's two that are always included. One's unstoppable, that's my nature. But the other is no excuses. But by that, that for me is the accountability piece.

B (32:47)

Right.

A (32:48)

Like we can't prevent the challenges that are going to come our way necessarily, but we have a choice on how we are going to respond to them and taking accountability for those. And so that's the difference in the top 5%.

B (32:59)

What's one life lesson that every founder should hear?

A (33:04)

Well, I find too many founders trying to do it all. When I said that, I think a lot of my success has been surrounding myself with the right people and complement of skills around me. Too many founders do that and they might say, they might say it's because of finances. I can't afford to do that. There's lots of other ways to look at doing it. And so I think that that's a mistake many founders make.

B (33:29)

That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Victoria. I've really, really enjoyed getting to know you and we can follow you on LinkedIn. Any other places we should follow you?

A (33:39)

Sure. Well, I mean the one stop shop for me is I do have a website which is victoria-peltier.com and then for those who want to connect on other social platforms of their choice, they can do that from there.

B (33:50)

Awesome. Thank you so much, Victoria.

A (33:52)

Thanks for having me.