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Exactly how does someone go from being a social worker to corporate high-flyer?

The product of Bermudian, Canadian and American schooling, Renee Lewis is Head of Payments and Cash Management Corporate Investment Banking & Markets for HSBC Group Member, the Bank of Bermuda. She’s responsible for the delivery of services to corporate clients.

“I didn’t study banking, didn’t study business or finance,” Ms Lewis said. “I actually went to the softer side and studied sociology and psychiatry.”

She began a three-year internship working with juvenile delinquents in her sophomore year at Boston College.

“The biggest factor there is about the ties that you have with the complement of people that you are assigned. The difficulty,” she said, “is not allowing yourself to become emotionally involved.”

She came away with her Bachelor of Science Degree in Social Work, but burned out from her field experience. She decided to work elsewhere for a year, then return refreshed to her own area.

Ms Lewis was night auditor at the St. George’s Club when she saw a Bank of Bermuda ad for a Corporate Administrator.

Accepted into the orientation and training programme, she shadowed a senior account administrator for four months, learning hands-on from her mentor before she was permitted to work with clients on her own. She has now been there 17 years.

“I had a really great sense of appreciation for my adaptability from the social work into a financial institution setting,” she said. “Equally important, I was able to deliver services to clients and make them happy.”

The 42-year-old Bermudian enjoys dealing with multi-nationals, management companies, the local marketplace and professional services, including law and accounting firms. She appreciates the sometimes instant gratification she gets from providing solutions, and she likes the long-term relationships that develop.

“It makes me very happy,” she said. “There’s a sense of drive that I have to excel even further in my career. It’s very inspiring and gratifying to be part of an organization that promotes women, as well.”

Besides being caring, loving and supportive — traits which would have served her well in her social work, Ms Lewis says she’s self-motivated, professional and knowledgeable. Her ambition generally is to succeed at whatever she does; specifically, she aspires within three years to become a member of the bank’s executive team.

“We all have succession planning. My aspirations are well known,” she said. “The tools are there. It’s whether you choose to take them.”

The bank’s emphasis has always been on training, according to Ms Lewis, who said of HSBC: “Now, we have even more accessibility for training for our staff, which is a key factor to our continued success. You need to invest in your people.”

Renee Lewis is married to Jeffrey, an American and former cash management consultant, who is now a Senior Relationship Manager, Commercial Banking.

As they’ve blended their interests, they’ve blended their family of two children each from previous marriages.

“Family’s really important to me,” she said. “And there has to be a balance between family life and your career.”

Though she combats stress in the bank’s purpose-built employee gym, she said:

“You have to draw a line to balance that stress and do non job-related activities with friends, with family, anything, but it should be non-inclusive of your job.”

Ms Lewis believes in open communication to resolve all conflicts and does not subscribe to “downsides” in her work.

“I’ve always felt that in every negative situation, there’s something positive that comes out of it, that makes you stronger, makes you understand more about the world,” she said.

Her biggest challenge is in knowing how to bring out the potential she sees in people.

And noting that service and differentiation provide a business its edge, she said: “A customer can buy any product. The differentiation is in the delivery of the service and the quality of that service. The first impressions are the lasting impressions.”[[In-content Ad]]

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