Daphne Thomas: Setting an Example by Influencing People to make them Successful

When leading a business organization, you must be able to motivate your workforce for various reasons including task completion, vision alignment, and even employee development. A personality that can change someone’s behavior for good, can fruitfully drive organizational growth towards great heights of success. Moreover, as leadership is about impacting, influencing, and inspiring, an adept leader impacts people for getting results, influences them for spreading the passion he/she has and inspires teammates and customers to thrive. One of such personalities is Daphne Thomas, who is an active Chief Transformation Officer(CTO) at iPipeline, Inc.

Coming from a Computer Science background, Daphne has worked as a developer for many years in Ireland, the UK, and Japan. After a long career at Siemens Medical, she was elevated to VP of Research and Discovery, where she led an Enterprise Development team of 1,500 employees across 5 different countries. Moreover, Daphne is deeply experienced in agile/process consulting and building a services team. In 2008, when Daphne joined iPipeline as the Head of Services, she developed a solid delivery methodology that helped the firm to grow its customer base to over 130 insurers and 1,300 distributors & financial institutions, with best in class profitability.

Considering Customers as Paramount

Today, being the Chief Transformation Officer of iPipeline, Daphne is involved in collaborating with customers in the insurance and financial services industry to transform not only their business but the industry. Through her immense contribution, she provides the best practices and consultative services to the industry as it evolves to a more digital landscape. While developing iPipeline’s strategies, the customers are Daphne’s top priority, as enhancing the lives of customers and helping them protect their families is at the forefront of everything she does. Similarly, Daphne and her team focus on how the potential strategy will improve the lives of the consumer as they consider buying insurance. Further, the viability of bringing a potential strategy to market is also a priority in the decision process at iPipeline.

An Organization with a Mission to Make the Difference

Based in Exton, Pennsylvania, iPipeline was founded with the goal of digitizing the life insurance industry by aggregating and distributing up-to-date content for producers selling a variety of insurance products for multiple carriers. Presently, the tech solution provider is a leading the space of cloud-based software solutions and dramatically improving the planning, selling, and servicing of financial products. With a vision to dramatically improve how insurance is sold, iPipeline offers innovative solutions that include pre-sales support, new business & underwriting, policy administration, point-of-sale execution of applications, post-sale support, data analysis, reporting, user-driven configuration, consumer delivery & self-service, and agency & firm management.

iPipeline’s mission is to provide a world-class, integrated, end-to-end platform to the financial services and life insurance industry to accelerate and simplify sales, compliance, operations, and support. With this mission, their team looks ahead to continue expanding the capabilities of their platform, grow responsibly, and capture more than 75% of industry electronic transactions, while focusing on customer-centricity.

Employing the Experiences to Create Great Teams

As Daphne has spent ample time working overseas, immersing in new cultures has helped her become who she is and shaped the way she navigates the diverse philosophies within the teams she works. Moreover, Daphne is passionate about cultural diversity and believes in building a global team. While speaking about how her overseas career journey has helped her, she says, “The experiences I gained by living in 4 different countries has given me an appreciation for the unique value each culture holds, and how to tap into these unique traits to build high performing teams.”

Challenges are the Part and Parcel of the Business

As iPipeline’s innovative efforts grow along with the booming industry, the firm is always in need of the topmost talent. Daphne finds the most challenging aspect of her job is to find great talent. In these times, iPipeline’s goodwill tends to help her a lot. “Fortunately, we have a wonderful reputation and culture that help us attract great minds, but we always have room for new innovators,” Daphne asserts.

Measuring the Success by the Success of Mentees

Being a leader, Daphne also acts as a mentor for various members of her team. Once a mentor asked her how many people she has mentored, and how many now hold positions higher than her. That question inspired her to look at her network and realize her great contribution to people is mentoring. The success of those people always gives her a feeling of great pride and inspires her to contribute more to people seeking guidance.

When asked how she would like to be remembered, Daphne replied, “I would like for my legacy to be that of a leader and mentor. I hope the individuals I have mentored will remember me for what I taught them and how my leadership helped them grow.”

Moreover, in the Mentor Club for Women at iPipeline, Daphne and her team share books and articles to empower women in their careers and hold open discussions around how they can help each other overcome the challenges that women face in the workplace. They are currently reading a book that Daphne recommends to anyone looking to grow their career—“Why Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office.”