To establish best practice and help our community to learn from each other’s experiences, we have launched a new series: Community Voices. The Treasury Today Group, along with our series partner, Association of Corporate Treasurers Singapore (ACTS), have reached out to corporates across the world to hear how COVID-19 is affecting their roles as treasury practitioners.
India Gary-Martin
Executive Coach, Leadership Expert & Advisor
Leadership for Executives
India Gary-Martin is a solutions provider for senior executives with complex business and organisational challenges. She is a globally recognised leadership expert and coach, with a clientele of C-Suite executives from around the world.
Prior to establishing Leadership for Executives, she held a number of global C-Suite roles including expatriate assignments in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Hong Kong. In her final role at J.P. Morgan in London, India was Managing Director & Global COO for Investment Banking Technology and Operations. She is a former adjunct professor of Corporate Education at Temple University in Japan and is on the current coaching faculty at Georgetown University for the Exec Master’s in Leadership.
About Leadership for Executives
Leadership For Executives is a global executive coaching, facilitation, and consulting practice.
Could you tell us about your journey to running Leadership for Executives?
I’ve realised that my finance career gave me a discipline that is the basis of almost everything that I do. I am not so organised in the traditional sense of the word though; I catalogue things in my head like a library! The fiscal discipline, management discipline, and the discipline around accountability have all served me really well.
How has COVID-19 impacted the work that you do and that of your client base?
Given the global nature of my work and clients, I had been using platforms like Zoom and Skype for many years for meetings. It isn’t always practical for me to fly around the world to meet – though I’ve done that, too. The current situation hasn’t been as much of a challenge for me but it has for many of my clients who are experiencing remote work for the first time. I produce webinars that help leaders quickly access tools to manage remote teams or lead through a crisis.
Based on your recent experiences, what advice would you offer to others who are leading their organisations through enormous changes and challenges?
The biggest piece of advice I can offer is to be super-intentional, with a laser focus on communication. Though video conferencing can be taxing, continuing to ‘see’ people is really important. It takes effort to be able to read social non-verbal cues when on video but it’s so important in building and maintaining relationships.
What have you learnt from your experience of this pandemic?
If this crisis has taught us anything, it is that the things that we have been ascribing importance to aren’t important at all, and that the lynchpins of leadership are ensuring safety for one’s employees, and granting people grace for the emotional trauma that they may be or will be suffering.
How can our community learn more about the work that you are doing, and take part in your digital events?
You can visit my website www.leadershipforexecs.com for general information or webinars or follow me on LinkedIn where I publish regularly.
If you would like to be part of our Community Voices coverage please email [email protected]
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