President, Payment Services, Discover Financial Services
Houston has oil. New Orleans has jazz. Silicon Valley has innovation. Can Chicago become known by 2030 as the home of gender equity?
That is essentially the goal announced this summer by the Chicago Network, whose new chair is Diane Offereins, Discover’s president of payment services.
“Being part of the Chicago Network community has been incredibly rewarding for me,” said Offereins, who has been a member since 2008 and became chair in 2019.
As part of its new “equity principles” campaign, the network — a group of roughly 500 senior female leaders — is asking companies and organizations to pledge to work toward gender equity in leadership roles by 2030. Participants file confidential reports every two years on the percentage of leadership roles and board seats held by women. So far, 70 have taken the pledge, including Discover.
See the most recent rankings:
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Offereins is also finding ways to advance women’s careers at the company where she has worked for more than 20 years.
She is active in an employee resource group known as Professional Women Impacting Results and recently joined a colleague at an event to speak with younger women from across the company. The leaders talked about the importance of finding senior-level mentors in other departments and creating support systems at work and at home.
“We know it is not always easy to take that first step to initiating a career conversation with someone much higher in the organization, so we are always looking for ways to help,” she said.
Offereins has led Discover’s payment services since 2009. Her unit processed payments of $376 billion in 2018, a 12% jump from the previous year.
