Laresa McIntyre, CFO of Skybridge Americas possesses that rare combination of visionary leadership, an acute focus on bottom line results, and a passion for building and leading motivated, high performing teams. She believes that, by inspiring all team members to approach their work collaboratively and innovatively, the organization can maintain the superior operational and financial excellence that benefits all stakeholders: customers, investors, and team members. She has honed her skills over the course of two decades in financial oversight and strategic leadership positions. Her accomplishments as a leader led to her recent appointment by Stetson University to their advisory board for their Disruptive Leadership Certificate Program. This program prepares business leaders to make sense of the unpredictability of new business models by providing participants with real-world, hands-on training to ask better questions, lead stronger teams, and communicate insights and strategies to senior administration.
" Rare combination of visionary leadership"
According to Laresa, it’s no longer enough to have a total command of the financials of an organization, if one wants to be a truly effective CFO. “To make an impact as CFO, you need to be capable of – and really, passionate about – leading and motivating cross functional teams and helping guide investment decisions,” she adds. “Today’s CFO is a strategic partner within the leadership team of the organization. You can’t really function optimally as CFO if you’re not deeply curious about how every aspect of the company is run.” She adds that if one is passionate about motivating and leading cross functional teams, anticipating future challenges, and mitigating risks through strategic problem solving – all while maintaining an eagle eye on the numbers – then the CFO role is for them.
Laresa and her team closely monitor emerging technologies and consistently invest in leading edge solutions, including technology, infrastructure, process, and human resources. “We make our investment decisions based on our clients’ goals and the needs and expectations of their customers,” she says. “Pointing to our decision to invest in conversational artificial intelligence as an example, SkyAI employs the latest speech recognition innovations and call path mapping capabilities to seamlessly route calls between IVR, chatbot, and live agent based on call type and customer need.” At any point during a call, the company’s virtual agents are capable of transferring the customer and the data already collected on the call, to a live agent. “We believe we’ve set a new standard for call fluidity, efficiency, and customer experience.”
They launched SkyAI, their conversational artificial intelligence platform, after rigorous, ongoing discussions with clients and other business leaders, conducting extensive research into best technology, and making a significant, long-term financial commitment to this game-changing solution. “The new virtual agent learns progressively with each call, communicates at the speed of natural conversation, meets every customer need with the warmth of human interaction, and exponentially increases your ROI,” adds Laresa. “Complex dialogue is never a barrier, whether over voice, chat, text or self-service and controlled by multi-layered compliance safeguards that allow us to deliver 100% compliance, while passing along dramatic cost savings to our clients.”
For the days to come, Laresa and her team of experts are committed towards their customer-centric approach. “We expect to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10% - 15% by maintaining our activities to support organic growth, new client acquisition, and strategic partnerships.” But, she knows the present pandemic has presented challenges which has been uniquely difficult for businesses everywhere, “we have always operated with the philosophy that market forces are always changing. There will always be unforeseen disruptors. We closely monitor new developments in technology, customer needs, and the competitive landscape,” she explains. “We’ve always invested in being a flexible, responsive, customer centric BPO. As a result, by the time the pandemic hit North America, we had already been up and running with an at-home customer care agent workforce for several years.” Laresa, as the executive overseeing the Human Resources department, was instrumental in ensuring the employees had constant communications about what was happening and how it would impact them. “Although Skybridge has been a work-at-home company for some time, employee engagement is vital since the life blood of our company is our people.” IE
Laresa McIntyre
CFO of Skybridge Americas
When Customers are On-The-Line, Everything is On-The-Line! You want a team that understands this! We were founded in 1953 as a 3rd party product fulfillment provider, acquired by Carlson Marketing Services and ultimately Skybridge Americas. We provide high-touch, high-quality omnichannel contact center, product fulfillment, and ecommerce solutions. Our company is distinguished by the longevity of its client relationships and the renown of their brands.