The 2022 Women Leaders In Technology: Gayle Woodbury

Gayle is a Principal in Crowe's consulting practice. She has over 20 years of professional experience leading audit, risk management, compliance, process improvement, and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) program and technology enablement initiatives. With a demonstrated track record for driving collaboration and organizational change, she is recognized for using a unique blend of business, audit, communication, and technology skills to transform business requirements into effective and efficient enterprise-wide solutions. She currently leads Crowe's Financial Services GRC Technology team and regularly creates and implements accelerators to enable banking organizations to enhance risk management processes through technology.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

My proudest achievement to date, from a professional perspective, is building out a sustainable practice from scratch that provides meaningful work for our people and a way for them to support their families and passions while positioning our clients for success. Knowing that our practice that didn't exist a few short years ago has changed, and will continue to change, lives for the better is pretty cool, and most definitely, fulfilling.

What advice would you give a professional just beginning a career in consulting?

Run your own race. This is something I've shared more and more with younger members of our team as, in today's world of social media, people are constantly sharing the good things in their life and not really the not so good things. This gives a false sense of everyone else doing better than we are and, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. If you know where you're going and you're taking steps to get there and you're satisfied with the level of effort you're putting in, then you're doing fine. It doesn't matter what anyone else is doing.

What have you loved most about your consulting career?

I enjoy having the visibility into how different organizations have tackled similar problems. Having worked in industry for a large part of my career, I lived in the weeds of how just one organization was looking at a problem. Consulting allows me to see and compare how different organizations look at, and respond to, things. It is fascinating how much differing circumstances, cultures, and available resources influence the path an organization takes to address a problem. It has shown me that it is rare that the same answer will work for everyone, and that further demonstrates the need for good consultants to help take concepts and mold them into a sustainable solution for each client.

What's the best advice—personal or professional—you've ever received?

I've been fortunate to have had great mentors and people who have shared their wisdom with me along the way. The best piece of advice I've been given, though, is that perfection kills innovation. As a natural-born perfectionist, hearing this early in my career has helped tremendously as I've realized that the innovation process needs the ability to test and fail to learn and make things better and continue to innovate.

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

This recognition would mean a lot to me, especially as someone who started their career in consulting, went into industry for a big part of their career, and then returned to consulting. Even in industry, and even in audit, compliance, and monitoring roles in industry, I've always approached things in more of a consultative and teaching type of way. This recognition would help solidify that it was a good choice to return to consulting for the latter part of my career.