Collaboration delivering results

BUILDING A TEAM FOR SUCCESS: Connie Laverty O'Connor, center, actively works to create collaborative, diverse interactions at IGT. With her are Tom Walsh, director of government relations for the global gaming-technology company, and Sue Strouse, vice president of retail. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
BUILDING A TEAM FOR SUCCESS: Connie Laverty O'Connor, center, actively works to create collaborative, diverse interactions at IGT. With her are Tom Walsh, director of government relations for the global gaming-technology company, and Sue Strouse, vice president of retail. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Connie Laverty O’Connor, senior vice president and chief customer officer of International Game Technology, knows the importance of collaboration, of building a strong team. At once unquestionably accomplished and exceptionally humble, her philosophy is different from so many other movers and shakers – it is her humility that is her innovation engine.

Her fearlessness is not born out of arrogance, but curiosity – and it has no doubt set her apart throughout her long and distinguished career in the lottery business.

“Humility is the thing that most shakes up complacency and makes people understand they’re part of a bigger solution,” she said in a phone interview one afternoon, perched on a piano bench in her office.

The piano bench is another key component to O’Connor’s collaborative spirit. More than a merely functional piece of furniture, it serves a purpose much like the woman herself – to spark conversation, to build lasting partnerships and exceptional ideas. Rather than hashing things out from across a wide, glassy conference room expanse, O’Connor said she much prefers to sit working side-by-side.

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“When you put people into a team situation and everybody works together towards a common goal, the plan that comes out tends to be everybody’s plan,” she said of the bench sessions. “I always felt that when people worked together, they could solve anything. If there’s total alignment, any business can dominate any industry at any time. I try to rally everybody around a common vision – that common goal of the customer being first.”

Much like the ethos evinced by the piano bench, what has proven to be good for IGT’s customers has been good for its employees as well, and vice versa. But O’Connor is putting the bench to work for more than just the company’s bottom line.

Since joining IGT, then GTECH, in 2006 as the chief marketing officer, O’Connor has overseen a tremendous diversification of the leadership team. It now boasts more than a dozen female vice presidents – a number far and above the two women who were seated in VP positions when she started with the company.

You can see little poems scrawled on O’Connor’s piano bench by many of these women, not to mention the men she’s also taken under her wing. For O’Connor, diversification isn’t only about gender, but about the incorporation of richly varied viewpoints.

The bench is also somewhat of a focus for O’Connor’s consistent practice as a mentor within the company. “I’d have three or four of us sitting together, working side-by-side,” she said of the bench sessions.

Michelle Carney, vice president of strategic customer initiatives, was mentored by O’Connor. Carney has been with IGT for 15 years, and when O’Connor came on board, she was the director of field marketing. Carney had advanced through the ranks at IGT, but said she was unsure of any opportunities to join the senior staff – until O’Connor came onboard.

“She really advocated for people she saw who had potential, who wanted to grow and wanted to learn. She has this innate ability to help bring out the potential in people by recognizing their strengths and weaknesses.”

Angela Wiczek, vice president of corporate communications at IGT, is another high-ranking woman who echoed Carney’s sentiments. Wiczek remembers O’Connor’s first day on the job, calling her leadership, passion and presence a “breath of fresh air.”

“She’s a natural mentor, a natural teacher. She challenges everybody to think differently and act differently,” said Wiczek.

If O’Connor makes being a powerful woman in the workplace look easy, it’s no accident. She’s had considerable practice over the span of 40 years in the lottery industry, and she’s worked hard – from the very bottom up – to achieve that record. But she has a confidence that’s real, a conviction that’s authentic.

In that spirit, she said that if she were to give one piece of advice to other women, it’s this: “When we believe in ourselves, somehow the world believes in us.” •

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