April 10, 2023

By: Anne Shire - Team Lead, Omnium Change Management, Northern Trust

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Professionally, I love bringing teams of people together to create business solutions. This is core to what I do at Northern Trust. Here I lead a team called Omnium Change Management and I'm the Omnium Platform Lead.

We are a team that's about 85 people strong in the US with roughly the same equivalent in India. In partnership with our business stakeholders and IT development team, we create business strategies, associated project plans, and execute initiatives for our Northern Trust businesses and clients that are supported on a proprietarily-built software called the Omnium Platform.

This platform supports middle office and fund administration services for hedge funds, private equity funds, asset owners, and large institutional fund managers. My teams include product owners and managers, business analysts, program and project managers, client implementation teams as well as various technology solutions and automations teams. Our work also has a financial strategy and operational component as well.

Our platform itself currently services over 130 global clients and has over 500 billion in assets and it's poised to grow significantly in the next 18 months. We work with our clients, business users and our IT teams to execute all “change” to this Omnium Platform to meet our evolving client and business needs. In other words, this involves large scale technology and client implementation project work.

My career journey

I began my career at Goldman Sachs in 2006 after I graduated from a small liberal arts school based in Pennsylvania called Susquehanna University. At Goldman, I worked in the prime brokerage business as a relationship manager to hedge fund clients. My six years in that role were both exciting and challenging. I learned from some of the best and I absorbed what it meant to work hard. I had a front row seat as part of the 2008 financial crisis and I saw how macro events drive systemic policy changes, to say the least. 

I worked my way to vice president and met and married my (now) husband during that time.  Shortly before the time that we were due to get married he got a job offer that required us to move to Chicago.  This was the first time that I was faced with a real life decision of, “Do I stay in my current firm and city that I love, or pivot for personal reasons?”  I grappled with this decision, and after a couple of days, I affirmed that while my career mattered greatly to me, I would feel most fulfilled on a personal level if I could find a way to balance career with the prospects of starting a family.  So, we left New York and found a new place in the windy city.

Once arriving in Chicago shortly after our wedding, I took some time to settle in and figure out what my new life and career could potentially look like.

I ended up doing some consulting work at Ernst & Young and then, through that work, Northern Trust became my client.  In my engagement with Northern, I was exposed to a whole host of new ideas and business problems to solve.  I was stretched in ways professionally that were new to me; I was asked to be a subject matter expert in areas that I had to quickly learn myself before I could possibly lead, and to project manage large-scale initiatives more complex than I had done before at that stage of my career.

I spent that first year in Chicago on this work and it ended up being a terrific learning experience for me, and I felt a great sense of accomplishment when I helped the team achieve project success. 

The most amazing part of that experience was at the end of that year, Northern approached me and asked me to join them full time.  Even more amazing was that I was seven months pregnant at that time. It would have been easy and understandable for Northern to assume that I would want to dial down my career and let my consulting contract, which was due to expire, naturally take place but instead Northern saw a business need that they thought I could solve and they let me make the decision for myself of what I wanted to do. They didn't make any assumptions about what starting a family meant for me professionally.

I said yes and they supported me in navigating starting full-time, figuring out parental leave and then returning to work and finding my new balance as a working mother. I will never forget that experience and I am grateful to the other professional men and women who made that opportunity possible for me. That was the catalyst to enabling the career growth I’ve had for the past ten years and has brought me to where I am today. 

Looking back, my willingness to pivot enabled me to set a new career course that I would not have had the ability to visualize had I stayed on my original track. Hindsight enabled me to see this.

I strive to give the same opportunities to others wherever I can and I also never assume someone's preferences or limitations based on where they are in their personal life.

Advice for those that are looking to make a career pivot

First off I acknowledge that no true career paths are the same and the above experiences are unique to me. Having said that, I would say that if you're in a place in your life now where it feels like you are spending most of your energy pushing against the grain or spinning your wheels unable to find a sustainable balance, it is worth looking outside the box.

You know more than you think and you can learn faster than you'd expect - take your shot and give it your all.

Early in my career, I thought I would end up in investor relations at a hedge fund, not leading a team focused on financial services fintech projects – it took that pivot when given the opportunity to realize this career path for me. I have found that the project nature of the work I do here at Northern Trust gives me the flexibility that I need for my family while still playing a meaningful role in the financial services industry that I enjoy. Our hybrid work environment also helps with work life balance.

Another thing I have found to be impactful is the support of my network through all points of my career. Relationships that I built with my colleagues and friends continue to be vital to my own career journey and I do not take them for granted. We need each other to grow and succeed and when something goes awry, as it inevitably always does, a strong support structure gets us through it. People will remember how you make them feel more than they may even remember the words that you say.  Please take time to build and maintain relationships.

I encourage everyone to seek out mentors. There are a few that I have in my life that have supported me and I still go to them today when I need advice. I try to be that person for others whenever I can now.

Again, for me, balance in life is key. While my balance may differ from the next person’s, finding our own authentic balances that enables each of us to put energy into work and into personal endeavours - whether that's family, friends, or other activities - is vital to avoiding burnout and cultivating renewing energy needed to sustain a lasting career and fulfilling life.

How I maintain a balance at home and at work

I am pretty structured; I put everything on my calendar and try to manage my time carefully each day.  I create priorities and boundaries that balance work and family obligations.  I don’t pretend to be able to “do it all, all the time”, seeking out help when needed to support childcare and other household needs.  While I care about everything I do, I also try to find the humor in things when I can and not take myself too seriously.

Here at Northern Trust, I’ve been fortunate to be able to grow in my career journey and find professional success in a way that has also supported my personal goals. 

 

Careers at Northern Trust

Learn more about career opportunities at Northern Trust.