Over the next five years, the function of a CCO will undergo a full transformation. According to Forcepoint Chief Customer Officer (CCO) Michelle Punch, as more firms utilize digital technology, the roles of the CCO and CIO will become increasingly linked. This linkage will be essential to boosting growth and optimizing each consumer touchpoint across all channels, particularly as it relates to message, personalization, and user experience. She says, “We need to reimagine the end-to-end experience as a seamless journey powered by automated decisions.”

Michelle Punch, Chief Customer Officer of Forcepoint, is a specialist in coordinating product and technology support with business objectives. Building strong professional teams and executing essential ideas quickly are two things she excels at, both of which are key in driving competitive disruption and customer success results.

She notes that creating a 360-degree perspective of each consumer is a prerequisite for creating an intelligent experience engine. Businesses must consider how to design the flow of each pertinent moment in time, the information needed to support it, and the cross-channel connections necessary to successfully complete the interaction as a means to meeting every goal the customer may have for an end-to-end experience. Additionally, this goes beyond a technology planning or path-mapping process. It involves creating a customer-facing flow and having the power to fuel intelligent experience engines from the back end. Michelle underscores that it is imperative always to consider how digital supports people, processes, and technology.

The Beginning of a Professional Career

Michelle’s journey began in County Cork, Ireland, where she grew up with her family as the oldest of five sisters. Her curiosity and fascination with learning new things has always been intrinsic to who she is as a person. She states, “I count myself fortunate to have parents that understood education was a way for me to improve and diversify my thoughts and, ultimately, my outlook on life. My education has given me a foundation for lifelong learning and humility.”

“Education provided me experiences that opened doors to better opportunities and chances to enhance my life,” says Michelle.

Michelle began her professional path in the data storage sector in Boston after earning a BSc in Computer Science from University College, Cork, in 1999. And in 2009 she earned her MBA from Boston College to further strengthen her strategic business acumen after serving in a variety of technical, operational, and managerial roles for several years.

Prior to Forcepoint, Michelle held the positions of Global Director for Enterprise Technical Support and Call Center Operations at EMC. In these roles, she developed significantly as a customer-focused leader while strategically integrating technology and product support with the company’s mission. Her goal was to put the customer experience first while consistently achieving revenue goals and fostering global corporate expansion. This enhanced Michelle’s experience in successfully scaling programs and teams to accelerate customer time-to-value while growing adoption and return on investment. She asserts, “The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.”

The Role of CCO

Michelle currently serves as the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at cybersecurity leader Forcepoint. As CCO, she is responsible for advancing innovation in customer success and customer experience in support of the company’s worldwide plan to accelerate the adoption of a contemporary security mindset based on the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture. As a global leader, she drives the investments and teams responsible for optimizing the business’ best-in-class customer experience throughout the customer lifecycle, which includes product enablement, training, onboarding, implementation, and support using people, processes, and technology. Notably, she and her team have made critical investments and process improvements that have contributed significantly to raising customer satisfaction to 95%+ and growing since she joined Forcepoint in 2018.

Michelle values her position as a female executive at Forcepoint as much as she values her “official” title as Chief Customer Success Officer. She shares, “I know I can influence, mentor, and coach other female professionals inside our organization—and in the cyber industry—and that’s a powerful role to hold! My leadership team and I recognize the importance of mentoring and actively participate in the”Mentoring at Forcepoint” program designed to foster professional growth and provide guidance on career exploration, corporate culture, soft skills development, and organizational understanding.” She sees herself as being in a fortunate position; therefore, it is crucial to her to support and motivate her colleagues as they seize these opportunities for personal development.

The Link Between Cybersecurity and Securing Data

Forcepoint recognizes that data is the building block of today’s digitized economy and the opportunities for innovation and malice around it are incalculable. With its Data-First SASE solution, Forcepoint focuses on securing essential data by utilizing risk analytics and behavioural intelligence. The company developed Forcepoint ONE to combine Zero Trust and Security Service Edge (SSE) technologies into one cloud platform, in contrast to other cloud-based security solutions that bundle portfolios of dispersed products. The client may administer a single set of policies in a single console linked to a single endpoint agent thanks to this connection. Forcepoint systems provide safe access while enabling employees to add value because they adapt in real-time to how people interact with data. The SASE from Forcepoint does more than merely protect users’ access to online, cloud, and private applications. With its SASE platform, the business places its industry-leading data security at the forefront, offering customers a special level of control over how data is utilized even after it has been downloaded. The team assists clients in both increasing employee productivity and corporate security.

From the client’s viewpoint, Forcepoint is committed to a comprehensive collaboration centered on productivity, value, and issue solutions. With a focus on time-to-value, it aims to provide thorough support channels, including self-service, specialized success managers, and a customized SaaS onboarding strategy.

Thriving in Uncertainties

With more than 20 years of experience, Michelle has learned one consistent lesson – “Don’t be afraid to fail. Opportunity lies in the space of uncertainty; “Take a chance.” Michelle firmly believes that a company is the sum of its employees since each individual’s contribution influences the company’s culture and, ultimately, the quality of any delivery. She constantly looks for creative individuals who can offer a unique viewpoint or technique to the table and who aren’t afraid to disagree and stand out for what they believe in. She has continually relied on a high-performing team for process improvements, technical competence, solutions-based orientation, and customer success results thanks to excellent leaders in place. The diversity of thought and experience across her team has enabled the integration of more innovative thinking and strategy into the company’s process, technology, and procedures at Forcepoint and enabled it to translate and execute the strategic vision into reality to deliver best-in-class customer support.

Teams Build and Thrive by Vision

When Michelle considers the customer journey or any deliverable across enterprises, technology is the basis for successful execution. The objective of digital transformation is to improve business processes. It is essential to choose a team with the appropriate skill set. One of the key stages that a business planning a digital transformation will need to take is choosing a team with the appropriate skill set. She also thinks that the key characteristics are technology, data, processes, people, and the capacity for organizational transformation. People with a broad and deep understanding of technology and the capacity for collaboration inside the company are crucial.

Technology leaders in their field, according to Michelle, need to be excellent communicators who can switch between operational and strategic conversations. She opines, “For organizational change capability, the core attributes of success are leadership, teamwork, courage, emotional intelligence, and other elements of change management.”

Diversity of thought fosters invention, development, and implementation. Because of this there is constant collaboration with all functions and Forcepoint teams. The finest solutions are created when specialists from diverse groups and degrees of expertise contribute their views. At Forcepoint, the teams purposefully foster an environment where individuals can come as they are, with their real selves and authentic ideas, and thrive. Together, they are supplying market-leading products and unmistakable customer interaction for which Forcepoint is rapidly earning a reputation.

Post-Pandemic Work Environment

Michelle thinks that Forcepoint’s implementation of hybrid work environments and flexible PTO policies in 2022 will be a part of the post-pandemic future. Leaders at a new workplace must be aware of the various motivations and difficulties faced by their co-workers and subordinates. She believes that frequent check-ins are crucial. According to her findings, building a feeling of community inside the team, both digitally and in person, is crucial for engagement and commitment. She adds, “Fostering connections across our teams and in the communities we’re each a part of will enhance how we feel about working for any organization.”

As a leader herself, Michelle believes that leaders play a fundamental role in creating culture. It might be the very most important thing they should do.

Every Leader is Unique

There isn’t one formula for success, and every person’s journey is different. Some fundamental disciplines have aided Michelle as she looks back on her career. She believes that resilience, which aids in overcoming stress and hardship, is one of the most crucial traits. She continues by advising individuals to have a good outlook and remain hopeful by viewing failure as constructive criticism.

Michelle thinks it’s important to take chances. According to her, many in the workplace are held back by their lack of courage to act and take chances. She states, “To become more confident, it is important to not overthink and just act.”

Finding mentors and sponsors is also important.  A mentor can be male or female, a boss or a colleague, with whom to have a phone call or a coffee once a month. Michelle asserts, “For many, one of the hardest things is comparing ourselves to others. Try to avoid it at all costs, or it will quell your creativity, your ability to enjoy the process, and your capacity to share a vision with others.” She further adds, “If you catch yourself comparing yourself to others, list the things going well in your leadership role. The most important thing is to stay humble because it opens us up to possibilities. Choose open-mindedness and curiosity over protecting your point of view”

Michelle also recommends working with her own HR business partners to do one’s part to amplify gender equality in the cybersecurity industry. At Forcepoint, its partnership with Fairygodboss creates a community space for women at Forcepoint to connect and offers a platform to attract new female talent into the organization. Michelle thinks it’s very important for women in STEM and technology to plug into a community of other like-minded women and allies. She adds that this is where one’s fostering connections, culture thrives, and learning is shared.

3 A’s – Affiliation, Autonomy, Appreciation

After leading many teams, Michelle found that her leadership success follows the “3 A’s” rule – Affiliation, Autonomy, and Appreciation. She believes that building high-performing teams is critical. She notes, “Building a team takes time to build trust. Every person is different. Ensure that the nuances of your professional relationships are solid between each individual. Building rapport is important.”

According to Michelle, trust is the basis of the 3A’s. She adds that once trust is established across the teams, then empower the leaders to drive the business and deliver results accordingly, and make sure to appreciate them for the work they do.

“Challenge yourself to do things you’ve never done before. Growth and comfort rarely go hand-in-hand.”- Michelle Punch

Website: www.forcepoint.com