Firmly in the driver’s seat
Every move in Nedbank human resource executive Deborah Fuller’s career has been an intentional building block. Now she brings her 24 years of experience to Nedbank, where she’s focusing on making the high-performance culture more agile and implementing th
Nedbank’s Deborah Fuller on how she will put her 24 years of experience towards driving a high-performance, agile culture.
If she was asked to offer career advice, Deborah Fuller, the human resources group executive at Nedbank, recommends: “Take ownership for the direction and growth of your career, don’t wait for others, such as employers and colleagues, to decide your next steps. Be clear about what you want to achieve and look for experiences that will stretch you.”
This is something she has applied in her own life, in which she says her best decision has been avoiding getting stuck in one place so that she can keep climbing the career ladder. “I put myself firmly in the driver’s seat,” she says.
This meant she was very mobile in the earlier part of her career, but says every move had an intention behind it and each transition to a new company or new position has enriched her and been a building block for the future. Her job at Deloitte & Touche, as HR Manager: Audit and Advisory, gave her exposure to working on a Pan-African level, the travel involved taught her how to work with people of diverse backgrounds, in markets with their own particularities. Her tenure at General Electric in the UK for 11 years taught her about the European business landscape and managing large teams through transitions such as restructures and downsizes.
She points out that in the context of today’s changing marketplace, it is especially important for individuals to be more deliberate in directing the trajectory of their career. She highlights that every step of the journey may not be perfect and success is very often not a linear process. “Any missteps or poor choices along the way are beneficial if you look for the lesson in them. It’s important to ensure that when the going gets tough, you maintain a critical focus on the opportunities on the horizon.”
It is said that having multiple careers in one’s lifetime will soon be the norm. Deborah believes that curiosity and humility are the cornerstones of a long, successful career, which these days demands that we embark on a journey of continuous learning.
“Being teachable and staying open to growth starts with a mindset of being aware that none of us have all the answers and the best outcomes are achieved when we are open to new ideas and concepts. Moreover, new scenarios are constantly presenting themselves and with each, we have an opportunity to invent new solutions if we are willing to think differently.”
Deborah's vision of success is to grow and deliver great value and meaningful impact to the Nedbank Group. In her eyes, this looks like improving the
bank’s competitiveness, successfully infusing a high-performance culture that is more agile, more digital, more client focused, and making Nedbank an employer of choice and industry leader as the banking group continues to embed its purpose of being financial experts who do good for individuals, businesses and society.
She has been in her current position at Nedbank since June 2018. She brings with her 24 years of human resource experience and a proven track record of building high-performing teams. Among her accomplishments is holding a number of European and global HR specialist and generalist roles, including global HR manager: Marketing and Communications at GE; head: Human Resources, Global Enabling Functions at Standard Bank; and, most recently, Barclays Africa Group cluster head: Human Resources, Retail and Business Banking, leading the people agenda across 13 African countries. All of these roles equipped her to thrive in the multi-cultural, multi-tier environment in which she is now.
In heading the Group HR unit that works in partnership with all Nedbank clusters, Deborah is tasked with creating a transformed and equitable work environment, which in turn should enhance the performance of people to achieve Nedbank’s business objectives.
Her work is at the heart of the Nedbank People 2020 strategy, which was launched in 2015 and has now reached a pivotal stage, as it is coming into fruition next year. Deborah is putting in place systems in line with the strategy, and is proud of being able to harness her prior experience to realise this vision.
The building blocks of success
Tasked with developing and driving both the business and HR agendas on an ongoing basis, Deborah is continuously faced with a multitude of decisions, judgements and choices with far-reaching consequences. “On a daily basis I spend a significant amount of time in meetings, engaging leading executive bodies, excos and forums to review solutions and make pivotal decisions for the bank.”
Since she has so many decisions to make and factors to consider on a range of matters, she bases her conclusions on a system of gathering as much information or data as possible, evaluating its contents and merits and weighing up the potential impact. Thereafter she assesses a range of possible solutions and chooses the one that meets the strategic intent of the organisation. She asserts that this is not a solo effort, saying: "As a leader, I value collaboration and tap into the diversity of talents and capabilities we have to foster excellence.”
“Nedbank has embarked on a journey that aims to put the bank at the forefront of technology under its ‘Digital first, first in digital’ focus.”
Thriving in the age of digital
Similarly to its competitors, Nedbank has embarked on a journey that aims to put the bank at the forefront of technology under its ‘Digital first, first in digital’ focus. This pivot requires a mindful yet dynamic approach to aligning the human capital needs to a new, evolving environment and its demands. Deborah draws from her experience in leading significant instances of people change including restructurings, acquisitions, integrations and dispositions to drive the current shift to a more responsive, digital, fast-paced, client-centred and competitive organisation.
Deborah shares that the disruptions brought on by technology and social behaviour are challenging the bank to adapt to a new world of business, and by extension, the way people work. She says the organisation is responding by adopting an agile mindset, which is people-centric and not solely process driven. “The changes are characterised by an ever-changing, dexterous and innovating approach which views employees as thinkers, and uses techniques such as design thinking, which combines creative and critical thinking.”
With this in mind, the bank is teaching employees to adopt a more entrepreneurial outlook to their roles by encouraging them to experiment, seek continuous learning, and adopt a “fail fast” approach to projects. As an expression of this, they will deploy
minimum viable products (MVPs) to get early iterations of products out into the market faster and test their viability quickly.
They have also flattened hierarchical structures and invited professionals at all levels to collaborate and work across functions.
“Excellence and performance are important to us and we are always looking for ways to offer our people the autonomy and security to be their best and operate in a way that enables teams to cope with continuous change. It is important to empower staff to become as nimble as possible in the rapidly shifting context in which they find themselves,” says Deborah, further explaining that, “what it is forcing us to do is respond as innovation and culture collide and do a great job of creating an environment where employees can be stretched and challenged in this state of flux.” It’s a mindset focused on dwelling on solutions and not problems.
All these factors have to be addressed in tandem with attracting and retaining top talent while leading employee engagement.
Contribution
Deborah welcomes the opportunity to play a significant leadership role in the organisation, as this allows her to interrogate the impacts of group decisions on their people and seek the most positive outcomes in whichever scenario leadership is confronted with. She’s mindful of the responsibility to craft incisive, original strategies that help retain the right skills, and as the war for talent heats up, to make the bank an employer of choice.
With running such a dynamic portfolio, one of the most rewarding aspects has been the opportunity to champion the bank’s people agenda, which spans six countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) where it owns subsidiaries and banks in Namibia, Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho and Zimbabwe. Working across these markets has allowed her to use her diverse global background and she is particularly enthusiastic to lead the current agenda of equipping teams to create the right culture – one of innovation, creativity and problem solving – to unlock value.
As she drives the design and development of a new strategic workforce planning practice and methodology, she says: “One of my biggest priorities is to guide the bank’s evolution to the workforce of the future. To do this effectively, we need to be more innovative, client centric and foster an enabling, high-performance culture while ensuring we preserve employee health and wellbeing.”
Top of mind is the goal to stay competitive, and tackle complexities and opportunities resourcefully.
Deborah’s downtime
In her spare time, Deborah spends time with her husband and children. She says that they understand the demands of her work and are extremely supportive – but evenings and weekends are an opportunity to change gears and refuel by enjoying time together.