The Path to Regional Operations Director
Angela A.
Director, Regional Operations
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
New Castle, DE
The journey to Discover
I often share the story of how I got hired at Discover. When I applied, I already had four job offers on the table. On paper, all the other offers were objectively better. However, there was something about the warm welcome, smiles, and authenticity of the people at Discover that made me ultimately accept the offer. I haven’t looked back after 13 years.
Curiosity fueling growth
I’ve always been curious and asked questions with the intent to learn and enhance processes. Because of this, I’ve grown within the organization through lateral career shifts and promotions. This internal movement has provided me with valuable business knowledge.
Making exceptions
In my prior role as a Senior Manager of Operations, one of my main areas of responsibility was customer exception processing. For example, let’s say a customer made a payment over a week ago, but they can’t see their payment posted to their account. My team researched and processed these types of transactions. If transactions started weeks ago in the customer journey, I had to first alleviate the customer’s frustration. In this way, my work is always integral to the customer experience. In addition to this processing work, we also served as consultants for monetary movement. Monetary movement means any money that moves i.e. through wire transfers, wires, checks, etc.
Getting certified
We handled monetary movement primarily because we all had the right skill sets, specialized knowledge and certifications to support those challenges, in addition to our regular roles. I’ve earned the Accredited ACH Professional (AAP) certification and am currently studying for the National Check Professional (NCP) certification with Discover. I also earned my Master’s degree through Discover’s educational assistance program. These certifications transformed how the enterprise manages specific monetary processing and changes. They ensure compliance with regulations, while providing benefit to our customers.
Competitive edge
The certifications aren’t mandatory; however, they provide Discover with a competitive edge in the industry to have experts in specific payments. This means we have expertise about regulations, financial institution warranties and obligations, and we have insight into innovative payment solutions. These certifications are extremely impactful to my career and to Discover. In collaboration with my team (who also earned AAP certifications), we have been able to provide extensive consultation and transform the business. A very recent example— our expertise helped shape new processes for pandemic programs (economic impact payment or stimulus) and mitigating risk. We ensured Discover remained compliant with specific governing rules.
Taking on a new leadership role
I recently took on a new role leading the digital servicing family for the customer service and engagement team at Discover. I’m still leaning into my new role (and also supporting my prior role), but I’m very excited about the opportunity. Taking on the Regional Operations Director role is quite different from my prior background and history with Discover. Since joining in 2008, I’ve supported back office operations and banking. In my new capacity, I have the amazing opportunity to work with a wonderful team and influence customer experience in our digital channel. I’m looking forward to building strategy around our ever-changing customer expectations to continue to provide award-winning customer service.
Eliminating inefficiency
We’re always working together to improve the customer experience by eliminating inefficiencies. We create more streamlined processes to resolve processing scenarios much quicker. We’ve had many successes with shortening the customer journey. In some instances, we’ve eliminated processing from 20 days to just 3 days!
Starting a family
I’m excited to share that I’m also expecting my first child in January. My leadership has always been fierce supporters of prioritizing our families over everything else. The support I’ve received from my team is especially important to me right now because it can be hard for successful, career-driven women to take significant time away from work. That’s not the case here. Discover offers great benefits for parental leave and the right culture to back it up.
Leaders who listen and act
I’ve worked at Discover for 13 years, and it is always the people that bring me back every single day. People outside the company are always surprised at the autonomy and openness of our leaders. They’re surprised to hear that when we propose ideas and solutions, our leaders listen and act. My advice to job seekers? Apply! It’s a no brainer. In my experience, Discover offers a unique culture and mindset that’s unmatched.
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