Bio

My story begins as a child living in Ukraine. After decades of experiencing religious persecution, my parents packed up all that we had and - along with my sister and I - immigrated to the US. This was perhaps the first time that I felt the meaning of trust. My parents trusted in their own abilities to get past the language barriers and the challenges of crossing the globe with barely anything to their name to start a new life for themselves and their children. Our family landed in the heartland of America – Overland Park, Kansas. The culture shock was real. While I was no longer fearful of being slighted because of my religion, I was now “that foreign kid”, and once again felt like an outsider. Placing trust in others and being vulnerable didn’t come natural to the 12-year-old me. Yet even then, I recognized the importance of trust to meaningful relationships. Graduating from University of Kansas as a proud Jayhawk, I encountered Deloitte who was recruiting on campus for the Summer Scholar (intern) program. Once again, trust played a key role; while I had other offers and opportunities, I trusted that Deloitte - by the nature of being a professional services organization and their “product” being their people - was the right place for me. In my nearly 20-year career, I have had the fortune of helping companies all over the globe and across industries transform themselves through business process and technology-enabled solutions. Those experiences further highlighted the unique aspects of different cultures, regions, sectors, and even organizational nuances and dynamics. Yet one thing always felt consistent, even constant. Trust. Trust that my colleagues and clients had in me as a professional, trust that our clients had in Deloitte, trust that I had for those around me, trust that our clients had to earn from their various stakeholders to achieve their ultimate objectives. While I always felt this and my intuition suggested it, trust was rarely explicitly mentioned. So perhaps that’s why today I am so passionate about the work my team and I do. Trust is essential to organizational success. For me to have the chance to help our clients define, measure, build, and protect trust – I cannot think of a more exciting endeavor.