What do you do and what is it about your job that gets you out of bed in the morning?
I am AVP, Product Management at LexisNexis Risk Solutions within our Insurance business. I manage teams of product managers responsible for our Identity and Prefill solutions and our Product Performance Group. The Identity team manages solutions that help carriers verify, authenticate, and assess risk on physical and digital identities. The Prefill team manages solutions that help improve the consumer experience when getting an insurance quote. The Product Performance Group creates standards and best practices for our Product Management organization.
What I love about my job is the ever-changing landscape. There’s always something to learn and a new challenge to face. On the Identity side, the fraud landscape keeps evolving. As such, we must keep developing our products to stay ahead of current threats. We also have to keep educating the market on what the emerging threats are and how they can proactively protect themselves. On the Prefill side, consumer expectations continue to evolve. As the world continues to become more and more digitized, consumers expect to be able to transact seamlessly with their insurance carriers online. My team continues to look for ways to help carriers provide this seamless experience to their consumers while protecting themselves from fraud.
Another thing I love about my job is the culture of our organization and the people that I get to work with. LexisNexis Risk Solutions is a very collaborative culture and I get to work with very smart people that I continue to learn from every day. LexisNexis Risk Solutions also places a big focus on Diversity and Inclusion, and I have the honor of serving as the Gender Facet Lead. In this capacity, I serve as an inclusion lead and ambassador for the gender facet by creating an aligned strategic plan for all the Employee Resource Groups focused on gender equality.
How did you get to where you are today?
Honestly, it was preparation, fate, and good fortune. I started my career in the US as a data analyst at a top P&C insurer. After doing that for 8 years, I decided to pursue my MBA as I knew I wanted to move into the business. Upon completion of my MBA, I started at LexisNexis Risk Solutions in their Leadership Development Program. This allowed me to do three 8-month rotations in different areas of their business. I offboarded from the program into the Insurance product management organization managing a cross-market fraud solution. From there, I’ve grown my career by being open to new opportunities. When the fraud solution was sunset, I moved on to launch the Identity suite based on the needs of the Insurance market. Since then, I’ve expanded my role twice, first taking on the Prefill solutions and most recently the Product Performance Group.
What is the most important lesson you have learned along the way?
As cliché as it sounds, be yourself. As a black female from the Caribbean, there were times early in my career where I felt I had to fit in. This often manifested itself by me being quiet in meetings because I was conscious of my accent. One of my bosses/mentors encouraged me to speak up, and I noticed that when I did, people started appreciating the way I think, solve problems, and my leadership style. This really helped with my personal brand and led to stronger relationships (mentors and advocates) and more opportunities. Now, it is important for me to be my authentic self because I want to be an example to new employees that you don’t have to compromise who you are to grow your career.
What's your pitch to CEOs in the identity space? What do you suggest they START / STOP / CONTINUE doing and why?
Digitization is not slowing down or going away. It is going to continue advancing and evolving. With that, both consumer expectations and the fraud landscape will also continue to advance and evolve. CEOs are going to continue to be faced with having to provide an exceptional, seamless consumer experience while protecting themselves against fraudulent attacks. I encourage them to start leveraging identity solutions to enable them to do both. A lot of times, we think of identity solutions as tools to help catch the “bad guys,” but identity solutions can also help you identify who the genuine, low-risk consumers are that are coming to interact with you and allow you to give these consumers an exceptional, seamless consumer experience. In this world of having to balance consumer experience with fraud detection, it is just as important to identify the “good guys” as it is the “bad guys.”
I would also encourage CEOs to stop looking for a silver bullet. There is no one tool that is going to solve all your fraud and consumer experience needs. Again, the landscape is complex and ever-evolving, so your best defense is to implement a layered approach that assesses identity risk up-front and triages based on the risk presented. For low-risk consumers, you can fast-track the transaction. For mid-risk consumers, you may want to collect additional information, and for high-risk consumers, you may want to route them to a more manual process or a call-center.
Finally, continue learning. Fraudsters are creative, and they are always finding new vulnerabilities and coming up with new ways to exploit your systems. Stay educated on what they are doing and what new solutions and technologies are being developed.
In one sentence, why does diversity matter to you?
Diversity matters to me because I want to do my part to create a better world and workplace for my daughter.
What book/film/piece of art would you recommend to your fellow members? Why?
One book that’s stuck with me is How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith. This book lays out 12 habits that may be holding you back. All 12 will not resonate with any one person, but there will be at least 2-3 that you can relate to.
What advice would you give to the teenage 'you'?
Lean into your fears. Don’t play it safe; take some calculated risks. Be brave.
Where can we find you on social media / the Web?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimbrown9/