Good morning. Thank you, Women in Tech, for hosting, and for bringing together such incredible women to share stories and insights.I'm Catherine Kaminski, and I'm the chief commercial officer of PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PWC as we call it. Many of you might be surprised to find me at a tech conference. I didn't study computer science. I actually didn't even study accounting. I am a history major. Why do I say that? Because some of the most important lessons come from the most unexpected paces. When I look at my decision making, I focus on the areas like my liberal arts background, being a woman, a mother, a wife, and the time I spend in c suites. Lessons aren't losing relevance today. Those lessons that I've learned are timelier than ever, and I can't wait to share them with you. There is a chat in the functionality.

If there's any questions, I can try to get to them at the end. But I wanted to start with why am I here? As chief commercial officer, part of my job today is about charting the firm's path forward, and I think about it in two very big ways, especially as it relates to technology. One is helping our clients transform, to think about where they're going. The other one, which is incredibly important, is also helping our firm transform, how we do things differently to make sure that we exist in the future. When I speak with business leaders about the challenges, the one thing, without a doubt, that is on everyone's mind is the case of change, and that change is here and it's never happened so fast. I like to say to our people, I think about it just in myself.

When I started at the firm, I'm gonna age myself right now, we didn't even have computers. We started with computers, then there were spreadsheets, then came the Internet, then cloud, and now we're in the age of AI. Disruptive change leads to massive opportunities. Because the one thing that's very clear, especially over the last five or six years as leaders, is change is constant. But the one thing that's different than when many of us started our careers is that the pace of change has picked up so much. What used to take years now takes months. What used to take months now takes days. That is so important because it leads to what we need as leaders and the skills, and one of that big skills that we need is the ability to make good decisions.

We have to make good decisions with very imperfect information based on tight timelines with multiple stakeholders. I think what's really important is I've not only learned about how to do this from my own work, but also in my personal life. People often ask me, as I'm sure they ask many of you, is how do I achieve work life balance? The truth is I don't. Balance is not a real thing, but what is real is making work life choices, deciding what to pursue and what to drop, who to listen to and what opinions to value. Throughout my career, my motherhood, I'm a wife, my job, I'm a parent, not only to to children, but I have parents that I also have to worry about. Through many of those decision making and through the frustrations and all fairness of navigating an industry that's very much dominated by men, I've learned how to make very different decisions.

It's actually worked into an asset for me. I learned how to make the tough choices, smart choices, and when it matters most. The thing that I believe is the more we sharpen our decision making, the better we lead. This moment is defined today by our new tech, but we can't forget it's not just technology that's moving fast. What we also have to focus on is our people and what our people mean to us and how we work with our people to make sure they make the right decisions and how they can do that. So with that, I thought it would be really interesting to think about decision making for this topic and what I've done and how I've done it. So I'm gonna start with my first piece of advice. It's simple, but it's not always easy to follow, which is simple as follow your North Star.

You won't get anywhere without knowing your direction of travel. I'm Canadian. Many people say you need to skate to where the puck's going. Wayne Gretzky said it quite famously. But what's important is not how fast you run. It's focusing on the direction. And you have to align your actions with that goal, that North Star. But that North Star is not about the urgent task of the day. It's about the big goal ahead. It's the one that gives you a little bit of throw up in your mouth. I wouldn't be here with I if I hadn't thought about my North Star, especially when it came to making hard decisions, and I thought I'd give a true life example. A decade ago, I was working at PwC in New York thinking very closely towards my North Star and working on assignments that led to it.

What happened was my husband was offered a dream job, not in New York, in California, and we have three boys. Conventional wisdom really suggested two choices, neither no one will be surprised, which is me moving to California and giving up on my dream or my husband staying in New York and giving up on his dream. We didn't pick either. We talked to our closest colleagues and mentors, and what I did say to them, and for this crowd, I think you'll understand, I didn't need a husband. I didn't need a father. I needed strong career advice. What came out of that career advice was me deciding to commute. I commuted coast to coast every week for seven years.

Now that sounds crazy to some, but for us, it made sense for my family and my husband's career and for my own because we are a balanced couple where we look at each other and work towards it. It wasn't easy on a work life balance, but it was a choice that I made that I used a lot of different people to help me with it, which then brings me to my second sort of lesson in how I think about things, which is around decision making, which is around gathering your experts.

I think all of us know this, that expertise is everything. We're all experts in different fields, but at the same time, we need experts around us because there's not one person who can help us make the decisions. We need a team. Best decisions are made by groups of people, not on your own. The thing that's really important about that decision making is internally and in your external life is having a personal board of directors. People talk about that a lot, I understand that, but why is it so important? If you think about what a corporate board is, it's made up of different experts who bring different things to the table. A personal board should do the same.

It brings you different angles, different ways of looking at things, and it may make you make choices that maybe you wouldn't have thought of, especially aligning it to your North Star. The important thing for your personal board is that it should and must have people with different perspectives, but the one thing they all have in common is that they have your best interests at heart. They are thinking about what's best for you. They're thinking about you as the person, both your whole life and your work life. I am a mom of three teen boys, and I really rely on my personal board more than ever. When I was had three young kids, I had twins and I I had an 18 old and twin, so I had three under two, people used to say to me, little bit kids, little problems, big kids, big problems. To be honest with you, it used to drive me crazy, but it's true.

Raising teens today through so many different things, whether it's mental health challenges, shifting social dynamics, constant noise of the digital, the technology, it's so different. It does require real wisdom, not just gut instinct. I've leaned on friends, teachers, coaches, parents who've been there, and I've had insights to help me with my own second guessing, to help me show up for my kids in the right way, and also remind me all the time I'm not doing it out alone. Without my board, I wouldn't have made both my life decisions and my work decisions that led me to where I am today, to take the risks focused on my North Star. The one thing I will say that doesn't get talked about as much is and I don't he's not on, so I'm not saying it because he's here, is that one of the most important people on my board is actually my spouse. He's my advocate, he's my partner, and he challenges me. He does the one person who generally sees the full picture, not either home or work.

His perspective has shaped many of my big decisions, but I will say this, we've had a lot of time talking about I don't need his answers. What I really need is helping him, me, ask the right questions, to help me challenge. And that brings me to my third lesson that I've learned about decision making, which is never stop asking questions. I grew up as an auditor, so for many of you know, there's a skeptical nature nature to that, but there are no bad questions, except the questions that you should have asked. In the client service space of where I work, I always say asking the good questions is hard. It is much easier to say yes and just move on. But, actually, if you challenge and ask the right questions, you provide so much more value. At home, the stakes of asking the right questions do feel higher.

So I'm gonna go back to my sort of North Star of my family life is my boys. I think this example shows you about asking the right questions and being sort of work life choices. Many of you have had this happen. I'm sure you're in the middle of a critical meeting and your phone starts to buzz over and over again, and you think to yourself, who could it be? And you can't help but look. And I look down, I see a text that capital mom mom mom. You know, that's when you do feel pulled between two worlds. You're trying to do the right by both. You're sitting in the meeting trying to be engaged, but at the same time, you're thinking what could be going on that he needs me so badly.

I checked the phone. I'd asked if he was okay, the simple question, and he said fine. He just needed me for something. But it really did make me think to bring in that decision making around, did I ask the right question? Do I need to ask questions differently in the home side as well? Not just saying, are you okay? But is there something going on, and should I show up right away? That is the thing about work life choices. When they need you, they need you. So at home, I've really started to focus on asking deeper questions the way I do at work, the way I think I should be working with my clients. Why does that matter? It matters for my kids. It matters for me. But most importantly, it makes me a better leader.

Because whether it's my own kids or whether it's talking to clients or colleagues, asking with genuine curiosity the question around or the question is so important. Empathy makes a huge difference to our everyday work life. It helps us with our decision making as we know the questions after the questions. The one thing that's so important in this world, yes, technology is important, but the people skills matter. To lead with empathy, what it does do is allow you to make real connections with your teams, with your clients, with your colleagues, and it pays dividends for the futures. Those are the principles that have guided me through my tough decisions. I hope they help some of you as well, starting with follow your North Star, gather your experts, and keep asking questions.

The thing I think that's so important as I thought about my career is that those three principles I try to do in both my life and in my career because it helps me be better. I think the one other thing that's so important is that all of us are ambitious, intelligent, curious, and we're also empathetic. That is something that we have that we need to share with each of us all the time. So today, I recommend you share your expertise, find a new board of directors, ask some smart questions, and use them to make the best choices for you, both in work and in life. Thank you for listening. I hope that helped, and I'm open to asking for asking any questions.