Philippa Girling: Leading Change with Authenticity and Diversity
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Episode Summary
In this episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Philippa Girling, whose insights have completely transformed my mindset on effectively driving transformations. Philippa emphasizes the importance of building diverse teams and inclusive spaces, simply because people perform their best when they can show up as their authentic selves. With over 20 years of experience as a seasoned risk expert and a leader in driving impactful change, Philippa is truly inspiring. We begin with her journey from a traditional banking environment to becoming Varo Bank's Chief Risk Officer, where she played a key role in making them the first neobank to successfully attain a national bank charter.
We dive into the power of building a diverse team with a growth mindset, especially within a risk team, to become a successful business partner. Philippa shares strategies for creating a safe environment where vulnerability is valued, allowing teams to thrive. She discusses a practical exercise she used to foster team camaraderie in a remote working environment with over 200 team members. Philippa also offers valuable advice to leaders on amplifying their voices for others, being vulnerable and authentic, and surrounding themselves with the right team—and the importance of listening to them once you do.
We explore how emotions can be a real superpower for leaders. If you're struggling to get your team to buy into necessary changes, be sure to bookmark timestamp 22:59: "Working Session: Get Buy-In and Drive Change." Philippa shares a story about taking her team offsite to rally them around upcoming changes in a truly transformational turn of events. She then provides tangible guidance on how to effectively implementing a change management framework, address resistors of change, and build champions for change. Which is no small feat as a risk management leader in a fast and furious growth company.
But what if people don't come around? As a risk management leader, Philippa shares her insights on why managing and monitoring those risks is crucial (even more so!). We discuss overcoming the risk aversion stereotype, leveraging agile for risk management, and measuring the success of a risk management framework. When faced with a risk deficiency, she emphasizes the importance of escalating risks loudly to prompt action. We also cover managing relationships up, sideways, and down effectively, and creating inclusive systems to build stronger connections.
Philippa reflects on her transition from her roles as Chief Risk Officer and Chief Impact Officer at Varo Bank, and introduces her exciting new venture, Camp Chateau, a summer camp for women in the beautiful Southwest of France. Where women are invited to just be themselves. Women are forever going on to new leadership roles, or yoga retreats, to focus on being better or achieving a higher level of power. But at Camp Chateau, you are already awesome. You just need a break. So you are invited to do whatever will make you feel restored and bring more balance in your life. Listeners will gain valuable insights into building diverse, high-performing teams, to effectively manage change and risk while learning how to create inclusive environments that foster genuine connections.
Time Stamps
00:00 Introduction and Background
02:04 Embracing Risk Management and Building a Growth Mindset
04:58 The Power of Diversity in Teams
11:10 Creating a Safe Environment for Vulnerability
13:38 Advice to Leaders: Amplify Your Voice for Someone Else
15:25 Advice to Leaders: Be Authentic and Vulnerable
17:22 Surrounding Yourself with the Right Team
19:52 Emotions are your Superpower
22:59 Working Session: Get Buy-In and Drive Change
30:15 Implementing a Change Management Process
32:44 Addressing Champions of Change and Resistors of Change
36:06 When Someone Never Comes Around in Risk Management
37:42 Overcoming Risk Aversion in a Risk Management Team
39:51 Leveraging Agile in Risk Management
44:45 How to Measure Success of a Risk Management Framework
47:37 Effectively Escalating Risks to Take Action
52:30 Exercise: Rebranding Yourself in the Workplace
57:13 Managing Up, Sideways, and Down
1:01:58 Creating Inclusive Events to Build Relationships
1:06:17 Moving on from a Chief Risk Officer Role
1:07:26 Camp Chateau: A Summer Camp for Women in France
1:11:02 Finding Investors and LinkedIn Networking
1:14:46 Wrapping Up
About Philippa Girling
Philippa Girling most recently took on the role of Chair and CEO at Camp Panier, a Netherlands based company focused on creating and championing equitable spaces and experiences for women. Their first venture is Camp Chateau—a summer camp for women in the beautiful Southwest of France. Before stepping into her current role, Philippa was the Chief Impact Officer at Varo Bank N.A., where she was responsible for the strategic design, execution, and measurement of the social and environmental impact of the company, including developing the ESG strategy, setting goals and measures for how to execute the strategy to provide financial inclusion and opportunity to all and providing leadership and direction for the diversity and inclusion commitments and activities.
Prior to that, Philippa served as Varo Bank’s Chief Risk Officer for three years, where she led the design, development, and management of the risk management framework to meet the regulatory standards required for Varo to successfully become the first neobank to attain a national bank charter. In the CRO role, she had direct responsibility for Credit Risk, BSA/AML, Compliance, Information Security, Third Party Risk Management, Business Continuity Management and Operational Risk Management. She regularly presented consolidated Enterprise Risk Management reporting to executive management and the Board, which also included market risk, liquidity risk, interest rate risk, reputational risk, and strategic risk. She also met regularly with the OCC, FDIC and Federal Reserve and served as chair of the Risk Management Committee.
Prior to joining Varo Bank, Philippa served as the Chief Risk Officer/Chief Credit Officer at Investors Bank, the Business Chief Risk Officer at Capital One Commercial Bank, the Global Head of Operational Risk at Morgan Stanley and the Global Co-Head of Operational Risk at Nomura Bank. With 20 years of expertise, she’s a seasoned risk professional and an author of two textbooks on operational risk. She is the author of two text books on operational risk and frequently teaches classes on operational risk and enterprise risk management at Wharton, Claremont, Columbia, NYU Stern and Baruch. Philippa earned her LLB in Law with honors from the University of East Anglia, holds a postgraduate diploma in International Business from London South Bank University, and a PhD in Global Affairs from Rutgers University. She’s also a member of the New York Bar and has a certificate in Financial Risk Management.
Philippa and her husband split their time between the United States and Europe, enjoying their summers across the pond.
