Game Changer Kathy Malloy Believes in Service: See How She’s Helping a Credit Card Company Boost Revenue

Kathy Malloy has been in banking for more than 25 years — as a branch manager, training director and now as a business consultant. Find out how her passion for service and volunteerism translate into measurable results for a top 10 bank.

Q: You come from a long line of service professionals. How has that shaped who you are?

A: My grandfather, father and uncle were firefighters. So are my brother and cousin. My mother was a nurse — so I guess you could say that service is in my blood. I grew up going to a Catholic school, where charity work was part of everyday life. We volunteered at Little Sisters of the Poor, visiting with elderly residents, playing games with them or just chatting. It was natural that I started volunteering at the Woman’s Club of Newton Highlands when I moved to the Boston area.

Q: What drew you to volunteer for the Woman’s Club of Newton Highlands?

A: My first job after moving to Boston was at a local bank. The Woman’s Club was a customer, so I got to know the board members through our face-to-face interactions at the branch. When they said they needed a treasurer to join the board of directors, I was happy to volunteer. The Woman’s Club provides college scholarships to women who are under-served. The club’s theory is if you’re helping women, then that will pay it forward for their children and for generations to come. That’s a really big passion for me.

Q: How do you think your service mindset has helped your 25+ year career in financial services?

A: Consulting is all about people and service, and those are my strengths — I get that from my family. That mindset has served me well in my career as a retail bank manager, a training director and especially today as a business consultant with NTT DATA Services, where I help financial services firms engage with their customers.

Often, when clients come to us with a new project, it is a problem they’ve been struggling with for a while, and they’ve reached a standstill. I see myself as the person they can trust to re-evaluate their situation, find a new path forward and then get to work.

Q: How has that trust translated into success for a client?

A: My client, a top 10 bank, noticed that credit card usage was not meeting their financial plan each month. When customers received their new card in the mail, the accompanying collateral was not piquing their interest. Their clients were missing out on rewards, low interest rates and monthly deals while the bank was not realizing the desired level of interchange fees and other revenue that’s attached to rewards spend.

This was not solely a design problem; we needed to re-evaluate what was important to the bank’s customers.

As I worked alongside the client, I built relationships across multiple lines of business and vendors and delivered on project milestones. I led the effort as the project manager, but also personally assumed responsibility for identifying issues, mapping out the process, leading a design team to enhance collateral pieces with color and imagery and most importantly steering the team toward a positive client experience. Since the client sees me down in the trenches with them, they know that I care about what they care about. Now the bank expects to impact over 240,000 new customers within the first 12 months, which will positively affect my client’s revenue stream and improve customer loyalty.

Q: What’s the one thing you want new clients to know about you?

A: I truly believe that the volunteer work I do in the community helps every client that I’ve worked with, especially when we volunteer together. It not only helps the community; it helps strengthen our team.

Watch Kathy’s Game Changers video here.

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