Director Head of Product Strategy in Global Transaction Services
Tiffany Wan was on the job at Bank of America for only six months when a century-defining crisis crashed through the door.
The new hire would have to drive the post-COVID technology and business strategy for Global Transaction Services, a division of BofA with a lengthy portfolio and range of clients. Businesses, multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments turn to GTS for tasks as different as liquidity management, payments, receipts, trade and supply chain finance, foreign exchange and commercial card services.
The pandemic's staggering impact on supply chains spawned a liquidity and inventory crunch. That meant the bank's clients had little margin for error, giving Wan's group a roster of worried businesses while GTS was undergoing its own instant transformation.
"I had just begun to build social capital with management and other key stakeholders," said Wan, who became director and head of product strategy in Global Transaction Services at Bank of America in September 2019.
By April 2020, Wan was working to gain buy-in from a stadium-sized list of BofA departments, gaining trust from finance, technology, servicing, fulfillment, consumer and digital banking platforms. She needed to convince them her plan was the way through the storm. Trust was one thing, but letting them know about the required investment without face-to-face contact was another.
"I didn't have the luxury of normal ways and timelines to build relationships. I had to figure that out working remotely," Wan said, adding she relied on being as authentic as possible, being honest and transparent about the situation, and whenever appropriate, lightening the mood with jokes about the challenges they were were all facing, such as the technology (Webex, HVD) or life/work situations.
At the onset of the crisis, Wan was asked to do a daily analysis of all GTS transaction data, such as volumes and values of deposits and payment flows. It was a new recurring report aimed at measuring economic performance, and Wan was asked to put it together in less than two days. The automated report incorporates new metrics that factor in real-time data that show how products relate to each other, and is sent to top management each day.
Tiffany has the rare ability to translate complex technology and product development topics so they can be understood by all.
Wan leaned on her own experience, having served earlier in her career in the payments strategy group at JPMorgan Chase and as head of product and strategy in wholesale payments at Liink, where she helped bring a new API, cloud and distributed ledger product to market in six months.
She also benefited from the skills of BofA's GTS data scientists and project managers; and by October the team had earned the bank's support.
"Wan helped secure from the most senior members of the firm both a multi-year investment budget and their personal commitment to the success of GTS," said Faiz Ahmad, managing director and head of global transaction services for Bank of America, adding the efforts of Wan's project directly impact broader work at the bank on tasks such as paper-to-electronic conversion.
A diverse range of talent helps execute a project successfully, Wan noted.
"Doubling down on development while proactively hiring diverse talent is critical," Wan said, adding the bank implemented programs for diverse mid-level staff with accountability metrics on career mobility, retention and promotion.
Wan is also part of BofA's bank's P10 group, where she joins 9 other senior women across the firm to share management insights and career challenges/successes. "I know that making it to the top requires the combination of access to a network, availability of opportunity, investment in development and accountability from leaders," Wan said.
Nominating executive:
Faiz Ahmad, managing director and head of Global Transaction Services, Bank of America.
What he says:
"Tiffany has the rare ability to translate complex technology and product development topics so they can be understood by all."
