The 2022 Women Leaders In Technology: Norma Nieto

Norma Nieto is an Executive Consultant at SBI who has leveraged her passion for technology, data, and analytics into a fulfilling career in consulting. At SBI, she focuses on helping technology companies achieve growth objectives through a combination of strategy, analytics, and expertise developed across her career, which included senior roles at PwC and IBM, serving as President of a medical technology startup, and standing up a revenue growth office at a custom application development and IT staffing company. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. She is passionate about supporting other women business leaders and is a member of the Pittsburgh Technology Council and Women in Economic Leadership Development where she has spoken on Data Analytics and the challenges of AI-related to bias and diversity in the field of medicine.

What has been the biggest factor in your success so far?

The first factor in my success is the ability to combine analytics and problem-solving skills with the empathy and understanding of the human elements that are so critical in the success of any strategy, implementation, or transformation. When I began my career, I thought I could solve any problem through analysis and getting to the one right answer. As I progressed, I began to understand how important the human element was and began to leverage my natural empathy and desire to help my clients succeed – both as individuals and as organizations. Today, I instinctively apply both sets of skills to develop solutions for clients that address the data-driven reality of their situation and the nature of the individuals, culture, and organization responsible for implementation and change.

The second factor is the people that I have worked with over the years – from my first manager at Price Waterhouse as a brand-new consultant to mentors and partners at IBM who have been invested in my development and career. I've also been fortunate to have developed and nurtured a network with very inspirational and driven women who I admire and am continuously learning from. And at SBI, which has an incredible coaching culture, the guidance I've received even though I am now a more seasoned practitioner has been invaluable. To me, there is no better environment than consulting to develop yourself professionally as well as personally because you are surrounded by individuals with similar DNA and a vested interest in your success.

What do you enjoy most about your career in the consulting industry?

What I enjoy the most about my career in Consulting are the opportunities for continuous learning across multiple dimensions. As a consultant, I pride myself on being a thought leader who brings best practices and innovative thinking to my clients through both industry knowledge and subject matter expertise. Seeing how an industry is evolving in response to global, socio-economic, regulatory, and cultural changes is really exciting and the challenge to help our clients respond to these changes is what keeps me invigorated and intellectually stimulated day in and day out. I also relish the opportunity to learn about individual client organizations – their products, services, business models and how in their own unique ways they are using technology to make their customers lives easier. At SBI we work with a lot of mid-size SaaS companies, and I love having the chance to immerse myself quickly in whole ecosystems and sub-industries that I did not know even existed, and the challenge of delivering meaningful insights and recommendations.

I am also excited by the opportunities to learn from both my consultant peers and other innovative practitioners as more and more resources like blogs and podcasts make getting a wide variety of perspectives easier. Leveraging those to bring continuously evolving best practices to our clients is very rewarding.

What is your proudest achievement to date?

My proudest achievement to date has been establishing a revenue growth office at a mid-size global technology company that provides custom application development, IT staffing, and consulting services to Fortune 500 companies. They had very ambitious growth goals but were a very insular and old-school organization and culture. As a one-woman Revenue Growth and Transformation Office, I was responsible for the visioning, development, and implementation of a set of strategic initiatives that would enable them to grow by 25% in 3 years. I had to leverage the full spectrum of the consulting and subject matter area expertise I had gained over my many years as a consultant. From high-level corporate strategy development, transformation and change management, to standing up more tactical and operational initiatives around marketing, sales processes and optimization, customer success programs, and talent acquisition, retention, and development. Bringing in best practices, benchmarks, and working in a very collaborative and empowering manner with both executives and the stakeholders was critical in helping them to meet their growth targets.

However, I am most proud of the difference I was able to make in the organization and its culture to make it a better place to work through the people and culture-focused initiatives I spearheaded, including employee engagement and diversity equity, and inclusion programs.

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

The best advice I've ever been given is that the journey is just as important, or more important than the destination. When I was younger, it was always about the next goal, the next accomplishment. Graduate high school, graduate college, get the right job, get into the right business school, and get the next great job. A few years after that milestone, I felt really empty because I didn't have the next big step in mind. Now what? I didn't know how to appreciate the more subtle growth and milestones that come a bit later in life, or how to set goals for myself that weren't external. At the time I had a mentor who helped me focus on my growth and development as a more well-rounded consultant, and a people manager, and to appreciate my progress and the path rather than the diploma or title, and that has really served me well in my career. I can look back on what I learned running a startup and appreciate the journey rather than focusing on the fact that we never got to that big IPO. Today I measure my journey by the skills I develop, the connections I make, and the people and clients I impact and I am much more content for it.

What does being honored as a Woman Leader in Technology mean to you?

Consulting has always been my passion. But in 2017, I made the difficult decision to step away from consulting when my younger brother was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer so I could be there for him and his two young children. I felt that I could not give both my clients and my family the time and dedication that each required, and I don't regret the decision to go into industry, as that was probably the three hardest years of my life. About 6 months after my brother passed, I began to feel the strong pull of consulting and felt that I was ready to come back to it. He knew how much I loved consulting and I know that he would have supported me in returning. While it has certainly been a challenge with a lot of change – in the world, in technology, in best practices, it would be incredibly validating to be recognized for the impact and contributions I've made since coming back to consulting as well in my career across the years. As a first-generation immigrant and Latinx woman, I also feel it's important to see other Latinx women succeeding in technology consulting.