Heather Brizzi

(Credit: Heather Brizzi)

Name: Heather Brizzi
Current Job: Director, IT Governance & Portfolio Investment at Sherwin Williams
Favorite thing about Cleveland?  My favorite thing about Cleveland is that it’s ever-changing and growing. We have an amazing food scene as well as incredible Metroparks and National Parks which are great for hiking, biking, bird watching, and even driving through to soak in the beauty. Plus, we’re on Lake Erie which makes for great views, sunsets, and any kind of water experience you’re into—except maybe surfing.

Q: Heather, thanks for joining us. Can you tell readers what you do at Sherwin? In my current role at Sherwin, I am responsible for our IT Governance and Portfolio Investment. That means that I work with our business leaders and business relationship managers (BRMs) to align the projects they want to do with value to the company. I also work with our IT teams by providing the framework for how they work with their business stakeholders to identify prioritization of that work at a Tactical/Operational project level. The hardest part, as with any organization, is capacity management. We have a finite pool of money, time, and people to do everything. This is why we want to identify which is the highest value work, or what we call “the right stuff.” In addition to providing the framework for our portfolio management, I am also responsible for the strategy in the Project/Portfolio Management (PPM) space and leveraging the tool for PPM to deliver and measure these attributes to our overall investment. Next up for us is creating an executive dashboard to allow our leaders to see how things are going or dig into the details behind that information.

Q: How have you and your team handled the transition to remote-only work? Prior to going fully remote, my team worked 1 day a week at home. Those on our PPM team have been together for a few years, but my role and an analyst on the governance side joined the team at the end of January. Thankfully, both of us had been working with the team as stakeholders in the PPM strategy in our former roles which made it easy to connect with the team and the work cohesively. I am very proud of the work the team continues to do remotely. We meet weekly to check in on how everyone is and guess which roller coaster one of our team members has behind him. The great thing about being remote is that we have gotten closer as a team, learning more about our dogs and families as we join each other at home. It has been an opportunity for the team members to grow in their roles and show what they know and can do in this space which they have enjoyed. The beauty of this time is that we can see how effective we can be leveraging our technology and collaborating in a new way with that technology as the foundation for collaboration.

Q: One of the big failings of the Cleveland tech scene is the lack of diversity. What can Cleveland tech companies do to improve inclusion and create more inclusive practices? The first step in any change is an awareness that a problem exists. In Technology, it is two-fold. While women are getting fewer technology degrees, there is also a leak in the pipeline later in their careers where they leave tech altogether to move to where the resistance is not so strong and where more opportunities abound. This is a huge loss since we now know that a company’s diversity—which means we have people with different experiences and therefore different ways of thinking about and solving problems—lends to a better bottom line (see research from BCG, McKinsey). Since revenue is king and something companies are always looking to improve, that means companies must have inclusive practices to attract and retain the diverse staff that will make a difference to their products and services. At five years of experience in a role or at an organization, if there are not future opportunities, inclusive practices, and a way to grow talent, both men and women leave your organization. That means that companies lose their talent investment right at the time these individuals are ready for their next step which is unfortunate; great for the individual, but bad for the company whose talent pipeline keeps leaking.

For me, encouraging women in technology to continue to seek out opportunities and responsibilities that align with their strengths is key. We often think that tech is all about the programmer, but with the way software and platforms are increasingly removing the programming barrier and moving to configurable items, we need more thinkers. We need people who can tie business outcomes to how we use the technology that enables those outcomes. We need more people who know how to listen, distill down the needs of the business, and how different processes and technologies can be employed to meet that need. We all know that integrations between systems and the use of data analytics and project management are critical to technology adoption and deployment. As the business and IT find that they need to be working together as partners for this to be successful, I think we will continue to see a need for people who can talk to people, negotiate scope, meaningfully connect people and data, and empathize with the consumer. There is space for everyone at the table and room for us all to grow and work better together.

Q: Before you moved back to Cleveland, you were in the military. How did that experience shape your career and why did you decide to move back to Cleveland? I had not expected to come back to Cleveland when I made the decision to join the Navy and see the world. Plus, I had spent the prior three years living in San Diego where there is near-perfect weather year-round; it makes it hard to say yes to winter again (at least for me since I’m a freeze-baby). Coming home for me centered on family as my first child had been born while we were in the Navy. Having the support of family while we were establishing ourselves in new careers outside the military was important. 

The first 3-5 years we were back in Cleveland, I was always looking to go back or move elsewhere. It was during that time we bought a house, had our second child, and my career was growing well in Cleveland in IT and I began to settle into us staying. Starting a job in IT at the helpdesk gave me an opportunity to leverage my customer service skills and put into use the systems thinking I learned in the Navy. I knew I was an excellent troubleshooter and could put together—analyze—why something was or was not working well. Those skills have served me well throughout my career.

Q: What advice would you have for women trying to move up in the workplace? As a woman, the first piece of advice I would give is to ask for what you want. There are no mind readers and the person who needs to look out for your career is you. Until you tell someone what you need or at least describe the types of responsibilities and skills you have (or want to cultivate) and how you would like to use your strengths, no one knows how they can help. If you don’t know what your strengths are, I definitely recommend taking the Strengthsfinder.com quiz to discover them. While you may have leaders throughout your career, formal or informal mentors, who recognize something in you and invest, don’t wait for them to see you. Create the future you want through each new opportunity and accepting new responsibilities even when they are not on your job description. Then, they can be on your resume which is more valuable. No one can take away your experience.

Secondly, have a goal in mind. I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up and that vision continues to form more with each role and experience. What I do have is knowledge of what I like and don’t like to do, what structures and types of leaders I work best with (and those that help me stretch and grow), and what type of culture I am attracted to. That information has been formed over time for me after I have had experiences I did not enjoy or that I had to slog through because they were not a match for me. Earlier in my career, I wanted to make a certain amount of money or have a higher level of responsibility and the title that goes with it. Now, I have had a ton of different titles, but learned it is more about the responsibilities and experiences I had in those roles than the titles I held. Don’t get hung up on the money or titles. They will come. That does NOT mean letting someone pay you less than you’re worth or not being recognized at a level necessary to do that work, though. Stand your ground on that. Know your worth! In this part of my career, I am more focused on the legacy I leave and want to leave each place and the people I am accountable to better for my having been there. I believe in investing in the next generation of leaders in technology, especially women as I know what it is like to be a woman in tech.