The “Getting to Know” series is sponsored by Applied Innovation. Applied Innovation is helping to shape the future of accounts receivable management. Product development is driven by customer feedback, agency profitability and compliance and includes platforms addressing client portal access, document management, payment negotiation, Regulation E focused electronic payment authorizations and TCPA communication authorization platforms. Partner with a company who understands your business challenges and evolves to provide cutting edge technology to overcome those challenges and achieve success.
Kristyn Leffler is one of the new breed of professionals in the accounts receivable management industry, one who understands the importance of data and isn’t afraid of it. It is because of people like her that the ARM industry is evolving before our very eyes. Believe her when she says nerds can be cool. Read on to learn more about Kristyn, and the role that basketball played in her joining the ARM industry.
Name: Kristyn Leffler
Job Title: Senior Director, Digital Strategies
Company: Resurgent Capital Services
Length of Time at Current Company: 9 years
Length of Time in Industry: 9 years
How did you get your start in the industry?
Mine is one of those serendipitous stories. My husband played basketball with a performance manager at Resurgent who passed my resume along after grad school. I had applied to Resurgent for a rotational role but the right hiring manager found me and offered me the opportunity to join Resurgent in an analyst role. The rest is history.
What is your career highlight so far?
The highlight of my career thus far was rebranding Resurgent in 2019. Through my work in digital I have been able to influence the trajectory of the corporate brand. I take personal pride in the role I have had in improving our name recognition amongst customers, the impact that has had on our financial performance, and as a cherry on top, the influence I’ve been able to have on our company culture within Resurgent. I have been so fortunate to be in the right place at the right time with the right skillset.
When or how are you most productive?
I still feel most productive as an individual contributor. Managing people doesn’t feel like work, so in a way I don’t feel “productive” when I’m spending time with my team 1:1, networking, or in strategy sessions. I absolutely value that time, but I still feel most productive when I’m creating output, whether that is a detailed analysis, a pitch deck, or a complicated query. Those things all require blocks of uninterrupted time, so I usually feel most productive early in the morning or late in the evening.
Which industry professional do you admire most?
This is such a hard question. I’ve had such wonderful mentors at Resurgent, from my direct managers – Todd Wagner and Amanda Smith at different points in time, to our CEO Bryan Faliero. Each of them has an incredible depth of knowledge and their own unique approach to problem solving resulting from their completely different career experiences. I’m grateful to be able to pick and choose what I like from each of their styles to craft my own. Outside of Resurgent, it would have to be Tim Collins. Every minute I talk to Tim is valuable since I’m learning something I didn’t know before.
What is one thing you do better than everyone else?
This is a tough one. I like to think I’m constantly learning from everyone around me, both at Resurgent in life more generally. I truly hope I’m not better than everyone else at anything yet, because I don’t think I’m anywhere near the peak of my career. I’ll say I’m confident in my ability to use data and data visualization to tell a compelling story. I love every step of the process from strategy ideation to quantification to data visualization to the end result of influencing a room full of people, whether for a new business idea or communicating the impact of a change to the website. You can have the best idea, but it will never get implemented if you can’t communicate effectively.
What do you like most about this industry?
I am so excited to be in this industry at this particular moment. We’re on the cusp of a seismic shift as this industry catches up to the technologies that have been in play for years in other sectors. The industry was in a holding period for so long waiting for guidance from the CFPB and it’s really fun to be here while things are changing so rapidly – for the better. There will be growing pains of course, but ultimately the changes will bring better alignment between the incentives of the customer and the industry.
What is one thing you wish you could change about this industry?
Just one? I would love to see more industry players embrace and develop a culture of analytics throughout their organizations. Every industry player has the data, but not everyone has invested in the tools or the employees to make that data actionable. If I can sneak a second one in there, I’d also love to see more empathy in collections. Tough times fall on good people, let’s all remember that.
Describe a typical work day.
I like to save some time in the morning to prep for my day with a large cup of coffee, followed by a handful of meetings – 1:1s, project prioritization, strategic planning, business updates, vendor demos. My favorite meetings are the ones where a group of us are actively panning and strategizing with a whiteboard. In between meetings you can find me checking my dashboards and reporting, skimming the latest industry news, looking for new vendors and tech, managing my inbox, and dropping the perfect GIF into the Teams Chat.
If you weren’t in this industry, what would you be doing?
I’ve always been drawn to the combo of marketing/visual media and analytics, so I suppose I would have found my way to that type of a role no matter where I landed.
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What is your guilty pleasure?
CHOCOLATE!
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Be the expert in the room. Know your facts inside and out. Overprepare, especially when you’re starting out in a new role. Cross validate your assumptions and results with the heuristics that more seasoned employees will have top of mind. This gives you so much more confidence and that confidence exudes credibility. But … never lie and always admit when you’re wrong.
What are you currently reading?
My kids are finally old enough to appreciate Harry Potter, so I’m working through that series with them at bedtime and it’s everything I hoped it would be. #nerdalert. I just finished “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig and it was the best book I’ve read so far in 2021.
What is one fact you’d like everyone in the industry to know about you?
I’m a huge data nerd, but nerds can be cool too! I promise.
Who else would you like to see answer these questions?
Megan McDonell of Absolute Resolutions Corp.
The “Getting to Know” series is sponsored by Applied Innovation. Applied Innovation is helping to shape the future of accounts receivable management. Product development is driven by customer feedback, agency profitability and compliance and includes platforms addressing client portal access, document management, payment negotiation, Regulation E focused electronic payment authorizations and TCPA communication authorization platforms. Partner with a company who understands your business challenges and evolves to provide cutting edge technology to overcome those challenges and achieve success.