Fintech Women You Should Know: Deirdre McClure

As chief customer officer at Treasury Prime, Deirdre is responsible for customer success, support, and project management. She joined Treasury Prime from HealthMarkets, Inc., where she served as head of product for Benefitter, a platform for group insurance sales and enrollment. Deirdre spent 20 years at TRW Automotive (now ZF Group) leading large-scale projects including ERP system implementations, and moving an assembly line operation to a new country.

‍You’ve been a pioneer in a variety of industries. Can you tell us a little about your early career?

After studying mathematics at Caltech, I started working as a software engineer. I wrote programs in the C programming language that ran equipment welding car parts and electrical testing on automotive systems, and eventually, I ran a manufacturing line. 

When Y2K threatened to disrupt operations, I helped TRW transition to new enterprise software to run manufacturing plants. And that led me to general overall IT project management where I did process improvement projects and I was a Six Sigma Black Belt.

I think that in any job the traits that are important for success are people who are creative, inquisitive, and want to delve into things. You need that inner nerd. 

‍What is a chief customer officer?

At a super high level, it's about taking care of relationships with customers. Getting a BaaS program up properly is a technical and complicated task and you can’t just put it on auto-pilot. Treasury Prime is much more hands-on than other BaaS companies and our team provides clients comprehensive support to ensure it gets done right. We try to meet our customers where they are, and the way our pricing works, we only succeed if their application is successful.

I get a great deal of satisfaction out of working with the customers and in those early days when I was the entire customer success team, I felt a very deep personal connection to everyone that I worked with as a customer. Some of those relationships go beyond professional relationships at this point.

‍What is your perspective on women and tech?

One thing that I always say to women, is to make a conscious decision to start their own company if they’re able. I came to the realization pretty late in my career that I didn't want to keep asking for a seat at the table. In some of these large corporations that I worked in, it felt like I was constantly begging people to use my skills, to let me help the company. 

When the opportunity opened up to join Treasury Prime, what it felt like to me was that I was finally going to help build the table with our co-founders Chris and Jim. Throughout my career, I didn't realize that this kind of participation and inclusion was what I was looking for all along. 

‍What advice do you have for female founders?

When I talk to people about starting something, I tell them it's all about execution. A lot of times when people think about starting a company, they think they have to nail some revolutionary idea; that to put themselves out there, they have to have thought of a completely new product or way to do something. In the end, what makes or breaks an enterprise is really all about execution, plus it helps to have good luck, timing, support, and these other things. But given those two choices between idea and execution, I would tell people to focus on executing their opportunities. You don't have to wait for the perfect idea to come to you to put yourself out there.

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