Angela Gordon has more than 20 years of experience in financial services in North America and 12 years in Western Europe.
The Kelowna Secondary School graduate is being honoured by BDO’s Top 40 Over 40 program.
“My career began in the financial services industry, pivoted to deploying innovative technologies to enable customer service strategies, and since arriving back in the Okanagan two years ago, has pivoted back to financial services,” Gordon recounted in a news release.
“I have worked for start-ups, experienced IPOs, mid-sized companies through to large global organizations like Accenture. Upon returning to the Okanagan, I joined Odlum Brown Limited as an investment advisor as I recognized alignment between my personal core values and those of the company.”
Working with a diverse clientele, a key focus of Gordon’s work is on women.
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“Women are a force in the community, household and workplace. I believe women have been historically under-served when it comes to taking care of their financial independence—that women recognize this and see room for improvement—and that’s where I come in. In the end, clients who work with me are those who seek transparent, relevant and trusted advice,” she said.
And she has a range of experience.
“Before joining Accenture as a consultant, I held various operational management roles ranging from a team leader within an IT development department through to managing call centres with upwards of 120 agents providing customer services to 10 countries in 12 languages,” she said.
“During my time at Accenture I managed project-based teams ranging from a few as three for high-level strategic projects through to larger teams of more than 80 when delivering IT changes.
“The biggest lesson I learned along the way is you can’t manage change—you need to lead with change. A good leader is one that walks the floor, talks to people at all levels and demonstrates on a continuous basis the core values and forward facing strategy.”
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Since moving back to the Okanagan, she has been an active community member, serving as a board member for Kelowna Women in Business, and volunteers with the Kelowna Soup Sisters and the Karis Support Society.
Her most pertinent achievement is her EU citizenship which came after four years of night school to learn the Dutch language and a two-day government exam to demonstrate fluency.
Her second achievement is the moment when a vice-president level director from the ING Bank asked her—after a one-hour program update—what part of the Netherlands she was from.
When her Dutch language skills were good enough to fool the Dutch native residents, then she knew she had done well.
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