Editors’ Note

For more than 25 years, Stacy Janiak has worked side-by-side with clients in significant leadership roles at the executive, business, industry, and local market level. She is currently a member of Deloitte’s U.S. Executive Committee and Global Board of Directors. Previously, she served as chief client officer and was a member of the U.S. Board of Directors. She also served as the Assurance and Accounting Advisory Services national managing partner, managing partner for the Chicago office, and U.S. Retail Sector leader. Janiak was recognized in 2018 as a Woman with Impact by the Women’s Business Development Council. She is a graduate and trustee of DePaul University and a board member of Boys & Girls Club of Chicago, Executives’ Club of Chicago and New Profit. Janiak earned her B.S. in commerce and accounting from DePaul University.

organization Brief

Deloitte (deloitte.com) provides industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and advisory services to many of the world’s most admired brands, including nearly 90 percent of the Fortune 500®, and more than 5,000 private and middle-market companies. It works across the industry sectors that drive and shape today’s marketplace, delivering measurable and lasting results that help reinforce public trust in capital markets, inspire clients to see challenges as opportunities to transform and thrive, and help lead the way toward a stronger economy and a healthy society.

How do you define the role of a Chief Growth Officer?

In the simplest terms, I like to think of my role as being the master chef of Deloitte. We have incredible assets across our Deloitte businesses, a rich set of ingredients to draw from, and my role is to work in collaboration with our leaders to put them together in creative ways to maximize impact for our clients.

If you think about the businesses we have within Deloitte – consulting, risk and financial advisory, tax, and audit and assurance – each has amazing capabilities. Those capabilities many times must come together in different ways to solve our clients’ most pressing issues and deliver the critical insights and perspectives they need to succeed and grow in a fast-moving, complex business environment.

How important are metrics in this type of role and is it challenging to track impact?

Metrics are critical and, quite simply, you need them to do your job. At the most basic level, two metrics that are critical for me to understand are what services and solutions we are delivering in what combination and where, and how satisfied are our clients with the quality and experience we are delivering. What’s challenging and critical for success is picking the right metrics to track and creating consistency to measure impact over time. Then, probably most importantly, making sure you act on what the data is telling you.

A strong commitment to
diversity and inclusion is part of
our Deloitte DNA.

What do you see as the impact of technology and the use of AI and analytics and big data on the workforce of the future?

Technology is definitely shaping the workforce of the future. I started at Deloitte in the audit practice in 1992. I think I got my first computer in 1993, so there were a lot of things I was doing back then that I don’t have to do anymore, and that young people today will never have to do.

Technology has been an incredible enabler – it has simply changed the nature of the work, the ability to be more productive, and the capacity to bring more value. It certainly has eliminated some jobs, but as we’re seeing, it’s underscored the need for other jobs – jobs that require human intuition, emotion and analysis.

The workforce of the future isn’t about human or machine, but human and machine. As leaders, it’s critical we find the right balance to maximize impact, not only for our workforce, but also for our organizations and our clients, so that we continue to fuel business growth.

Will you discuss Deloitte’s commitment to diversity and inclusion?

A strong commitment to diversity and inclusion is part of our Deloitte DNA. We continue to push ourselves and our strategy has evolved over time. We are an organization of firsts. We were the first professional services organization to establish a Women’s Initiative, the first of the Big Four to elect a woman CEO, a woman chairman and a woman CEO of a consulting organization of its size. We were also the first professional services organization to establish a Diversity Initiative, and the first of the Big Four to elect a minority CEO and a minority chairman.

Inclusion is the right thing to do from an individual perspective, but it’s also a business priority. It’s an inherent part of our culture, our leadership, and our approach to serving clients. We’ve embedded it throughout every milestone, so from the moment our people walk in the door through each development opportunity, they can deepen their knowledge and understanding of our inclusive culture and their role in advancing it. Our inclusive culture looks to empower all our people to connect, belong, and grow, and everyone has a role to play.

Many millennials coming into the workforce are looking for purpose-driven brands and companies that have a bigger focus than just the bottom line. Will you discuss the focus on purpose at Deloitte?

We have done a lot of research on highly-effective teams across industries and the common theme among all of them was purpose. At Deloitte, our professionals across the globe understand that our purpose is to make an impact that matters.

We were very conscious in selecting those words because it’s about making an impact that matters with our clients. It’s about making an impact that matters with our people. It’s about making an impact that matters with the communities in which we live and work.

We continually push on how best to foster a culture of purpose so that our people know that we are using our knowledge, our skills, and our experiences to make a difference. Purpose is always top-of-mind at Deloitte as we continue to define and refine what it means for us to be a social enterprise and how we do well by doing good.