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As the world celebrates International Women's Day on March 8, we want to shine a light on a few of the female leaders who shape, inspire and grow Experian. From sales to strategy, to people management, big data and beyond, women are a driving force in every industry – and their stories deserve to be told. Throughout the week, meet some of the "Women of Experian." Today, we feature Laurie Jerome, an executive leading Experian's initiatives around talent, diversity and inclusion. Learn about her career journey, learnings and sources of inspiration as it pertains to leadership. What do you do at Experian? What’s a typical day like for you?  I lead all talent initiatives across North America, (6,000 employees located across 24 offices and over 900 remote workers). In addition, it’s critical that we partner with our global talent teams for alignment and integration of brand, culture, leadership and succession management. In very simple terms, we are here to create a great employee experience and provide leaders with the tools, training and resources to do just that. The overall outcome is to ensure our workforce is engaged and retained. How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated? I have a motto that “If you love what you do, then you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” I found my niche early on and although I can’t say that every day I get to do what I love, I balance my day with networking, workouts and family. Work-life integration is so important for anyone who works full time. My days are full, but if they include some of those balanced elements then I feel fulfilled. One of my favorite things to do is pay it forward to others who are growing their career. I have several mentees and find so much joy in giving back and learning from them. I think it’s become more real to me now having two sons (one a recent grad and one in his second year at UCLA). With such a competitive environment for candidates and employers, I find it so rewarding to help others navigate their way. What are the most important values you demonstrate as a leader? I would have to say life-long learning no matter where you are in your career. With that comes humility and transparency in sharing what you know, and probably most importantly being vulnerable and confident enough to share what you don’t. I love to surround myself with others who bring very different skills, values and experiences to the team. It truly requires time and attention to ensure your team has a strong understanding of one another and values such differences. My team meets every other week and although some are virtual and in other locations, I insist on using video conference to keep us visually in touch and connected. There’s something about being present that matters. Oh, and speaking of presence, another important value I have is being available to my team and others no matter how busy I am. Well, I think I went over the request of providing the MOST important however they are all so related. What are some patterns you’ve noticed over the years about women at work, and things they could be doing better to advance their careers? The topic of mentoring comes up quite often. Everyone is looking for someone they can turn to and seek advice and council with on a range of topics. I think it’s great, but one piece of advice I give to those I’ve mentored is to find someone very different than yourself and capitalize on what they offer that you need. In some cases, it’s a male perspective. Like it or not, we see things through such a different lens and having that view can be very advantageous and insightful. Discover your gaps and find someone who demonstrates them well. Do you have a sponsor? Instead of selecting someone who can mentor and coach, find someone who can open doors for you and sponsor stretch assignments and new opportunities. Caveat… be prepared to be challenged and perform. It’s not for the weak of heart. I’ve always been an avid networker. It comes more natural to me. I’ve been told I have a “black belt” in networking. Women have traditionally been expected to devote more time to family and domestic responsibilities, thus lacking as much time as men to build networks. We’re starting to see more women networking. To be truly competitive in the networking arena, women may have to put more time into making contacts — and may have to ask their partners to take on a bigger share in juggling family life and work. Networking events are hard to juggle outside of work, but there are many more ways to view a network. Think about your gym buddies, those alumni groups, that stranger on the flight heading to another business meeting. You’ve got to get creative and get out of your comfort zone. And the greatest thing about networking is that it always has a mutually beneficial outcome. Go into it with a giving mindset and you’ll get so much out of it as well. Favorite authors/books? Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and author of Women Who Don’t Wait in Life: Break the Mold, Lead the Way , offers some advice for how women can get ahead and be the ultimate leaders, even in a male-dominated environment. I love almost anything Ram Charan writes: Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, The High Potential Leader, What the Customer Wants You to Know, Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First. And it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t give credit to a woman that inspires me in all that she does – Sheryl Sandberg.

As the world celebrates International Women's Day on March 8, we want to shine a light on a few of the female leaders who shape, inspire and grow Experian. From sales to strategy, to people management, big data and beyond, women are a driving force in every industry – and their stories deserve to be told. Throughout the week, meet some of the "Women of Experian." Today, we feature Jennifer Leuer, president of Experian's Partner Solutions division. Learn about her career journey, learnings and sources of inspiration as it pertains to leadership. What do you do at Experian?  I lead our Partner Solutions business within Experian Consumer Services. As a B2B2C business, we serve consumer needs through strong partnerships with our clients, providing white label and cobranded solutions. Today, we provide consumers with credit education and identity protection products. In the future, we will go into adjacent services with business units throughout Experian. Those products allow our clients to reinforce their core value propositions with their consumers and better engage and retain them. What’s a typical day like for you? I don’t really have a typical day, which is one of the things I love about my role. Sometimes I’m out traveling to meet clients, talking with them about how we can grow together or about specific challenges they are facing. Other weeks I’m in our Costa Mesa or Austin offices discussing operations, financial performance, contract negotiations, business planning, progress against our vision and strategy, and most importantly our talented people and culture. I always love 1:1 meetings when we spend time on career development and two-way feedback. I enjoy hearing feedback from my colleagues throughout our organization and I think it’s essential to regularly provide it as well. What are some patterns you’ve noticed over the years about women at work, and things they could be doing better to advance their careers? While I don’t like to generalize, I’ve definitely seen a few commonalities observing female teammates across different functions and organizations. Women are often quite humble about their accomplishments and will emphasize the team’s contributions to a win. Ladies, get comfortable with talking about your individual wins and the role YOU played in broader initiatives. Brag a little! You can acknowledge the teamwork while also highlighting the unique role you played. I hear from many female colleagues that they don’t like speaking in meetings. I strongly believe that hearing different perspectives assists leaders with making better decisions. So, in your next meeting, add a data point to support the conversation, comment on the market context, or offer an alternative point of view. Also, one thing we can all do is open the door in meetings for our quieter colleagues to contribute. Saying something like, “Jen, we haven’t heard your point of view on this issue. What are your thoughts?” can create space in the conversation for a colleague to share their perspective. Finally, I’m currently reading a great book, “Own It,” which reinforces the leadership qualities that many women naturally bring to the workplace: Emotional intelligence, collaborative style, strong communication skills, orientation for win/win solutions. These are all powerful traits that drive significant value to teams and that women can really “own” with confidence. What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year? Does Amazon Fresh count? Being able to order groceries via wifi on an airplane is a game changer! Actually, it’s also a great example of what it took to make disruption in that space work—other companies tried and failed with grocery delivery because key pieces of the equation were missing. I love finding professional ah-ha’s as a consumer. What is one characteristic that you believe every leader should possess? I’m going to cheat and give a two-part answer on this one! I believe great leaders are inspired by their teams…and work for their teams. There are many takes on this philosophy, sometimes called servant leadership. Simon Sinek’s book “Leaders Eat Last” gave an updated view of this. When a leader is focused on assisting her team to grow, learn and thrive, the organization aligns around high performance and continuous improvement. One characteristic that I am currently working on is relentless curiosity: Asking more questions, really listening to the answers, then asking follow-up questions! Often we get into patterns where we opine more than listen, and the process of deep discovery unlocks creative solutions and new viewpoints. What are your hobbies outside of work?  I feel like I have two families—at work and at home. Making sure I’m leading and serving both is an important part of my life. I used to think I should have more hobbies to force myself to have work/life balance!  I’ve since learned it’s really about work/life integration. I know that setting aside time to relax and recharge is most important for me, so I spend free time on activities that give me joy and that I can do with my family. My husband and I enjoy completing 10K and half marathon runs, so we train together on the weekends. That gives us a chance to catch up while also forming a healthy habit. I love gardening and luckily my two sons can usually be persuaded to assist. And over the past couple years, we’ve enjoyed learning more about the world of comics together (Marvel, DC, etc.). Did you know Thor’s hammer (known as Mjolnir for the purists reading this!) actually passed to a woman last year? I think it’s pretty cool that there was a Goddess of a Thunder on comic book shelves! Favorite authors/books? I love to read! I enjoy books (printed and Audible versions), podcasts, and magazines. I will often check out a book summary before committing to a book (some examples are below). And magazines are my go-to for airplane reading. Here are a few I’d recommend for International Women’s Day: Harvard Business Review magazine is a great way to challenge your thinking and stay up to speed on a variety of new concepts and advancements Mindful magazine has great articles and practices “Rising Strong” by Brene Brown “The Confidence Code” by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman “Great Leaders Ask Great Questions” by John C Maxwell “Barking up the Wrong Tree—How to be awesome at life” by Eric Barker “The Pursuit of Perfection” by Tal Ben-Shahar   Check back to learn more about "Women of Experian" throughout the week.

June 2018 will mark the one-year anniversary of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) release of Special Publication 800-63-3, Digital Identity Guidelines. While federal agencies are the most directly impacted, this guidance signals a seismic shift in identity proofing across the entire ecosystem of consumers, private sector businesses and public sector agencies. It’s the clearest claim I’ve seen to date that traditional, and rather basic, personally identifiable information (PII) verification should no longer be trusted for remote user interaction. For those of us in the fraud and identity space, this isn’t a new revelation, but one we as an industry have been dealing with for years. As the data breach floodgates continue to be pushed further open, PII is a commodity for the fraudsters, evident in PII prices on the dark web, which are often lower than your favorite latte. Identity-related schemes have increased due to fraud attacks shifting away from card compromise (due to the U.S. rollout of chip-and-signature cards), double-digit growth in online and mobile consumer channels, and high-profile fraud events within both the public and private sector. It’s no shock that NIST has taken a sledgehammer to previous guidance around identity proofing and replaced it with an aggressive and rather challenging set of requirements seemingly founded in the assumption that all PII (names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, etc.) is either compromised or easily can be compromised in the future. So where does this leave us? I applaud the pragmatic approach to the new NIST standards and consider it a signal to all of us in the identity marketplace. It’s aggressive and aspirational in raising the bar in identity proofing and management. I welcome the challenge in serving our public sector clients, as we have done for nearly a decade. Our innovative approach to layered levels of identity verification, validation, risk assessment and monitoring adhere to the recommendations of the new NIST standards. I do, however, recommend that any institution applying these standards to their own processes and applications ensure they place equal focus on comparable alternatives for those addressable populations and users who are likely to either opt out of, or fail, initial verification steps stringently aligned with the new requirements. While too early to accurately forecast, it’s relatively safe to assume that the percentage of the population “falling out of the process” may easily be counted in the double digits. It’s only through advanced analytics and technology reliant on a significant breadth and depth of identity data and observations that we can provide trust and confidence across such a diverse population in age, demographics, expectations and access.