The WFE's Women Leaders 2025 - Carla Dawson, Chief Human Resources Officer, OCC

Name: Carla Dawson

Job title: Chief Human Resources Officer

Organisation: OCC

1. Brief description of nominee’s role and job.

As Chief Human Resources Officer – and a member of OCC’s Management Committee – Carla is responsible for working with OCC’s business units to develop and execute an overall human resources strategy to support the company's business goals. This includes strengthening the partnership between human resources and OCC's business units, with a focus on talent development and colleague engagement. In addition, Carla oversees the organisational change management and corporate communications functions to ensure that OCC’s transformation initiatives align with the organisation’s culture and values, and internal communications are transparent to maintain trust and morale.

2. Short bio (career highlights, education, interests/hobbies).

Carla is the Chief Human Resources Officer at OCC. She joined the organisation in 2017 as First Vice President of Talent Management, where she collaborated with leaders across OCC to design and implement talent management strategies that align with OCC’s business goals. Her responsibilities included performance management, employee engagement, training, organisational development and change management.

Before OCC, Carla was Managing Director of Human Resources at Driehaus Capital Management LLC, where she spent nearly 20 years in roles of increasing responsibility, including Senior Recruiter and Director of Human Resources. She also worked with the executive search firms Heidrick & Struggles and Korn Ferry.

Carla holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial relations from Universidad Anahuac in Mexico and a master’s degree in organisational development from Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business. She is also certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) by the HR Certification Institute. In her free time, Carla enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, exercising and reading historical fiction.

3. What were your professional highlights and challenges of 2024?

2024 has been an exciting year for OCC as we continue to execute on the Renaissance Initiative. This is a multi-year effort to comprehensively redevelop and modernise OCC’s technology infrastructure, including its clearing, risk management and data management applications. To support the organisation during this critical time, Carla and her divisions have implemented key initiatives to continue to drive a high-performance culture:

• As a continuation to refreshing its core values in 2023, OCC launched its first ever Employee Value Proposition (known as ‘Our Collective Commitment’) to capture the employee’s experience and summarise it in a succinct and compelling way. It brings together the company’s culture as well as its mission, purpose and values, while highlighting its commitment to diversity and unity.
• OCC continued efforts to upskill managerial and leadership talent through coaching, training and professional development. To reinforce critical leadership skills, the team launched several leadership programs and resources and continued to implement 360 surveys for leadership at the executive director level and above.
• To reinforce a culture of career growth and enhance employee engagement, HR launched Individual Development Plans across the organisation, implemented a mentoring program for colleagues to meet and connect with one another on a regular basis, and continued to offer training sessions to upskill OCC’s workforce as part of the company’s transformation and planned transition to a new clearing platform in 2025.
• As part of OCC’s organisational change management strategy, HR kicked off a phased implementation of an enhanced organisational structure. This includes reorganising current functional groupings and creating some new functions to support business strategy and future state. This process will continue over the next two to three years.
• To supplement OCC’s robust communication channels, HR recently launched a communications campaign to encourage colleagues to raise questions, concerns, blockers, and ideas to resolve issues quickly. By creating a dedicated feedback loop, HR aimed to accelerate and rally around problem-solving to ensure the best ideas from colleagues of all levels were considered and/or incorporated as OCC prepares to launch its new clearing platform.
• The DEI team within HR developed a plan to launch OCC’s fifth employee network group (ENG) ACCESS, which focuses on advancing accessibility, addressing challenges, building empathy, and supporting accommodations for people of all abilities. A sixth group, PRISM, is preparing to launch in 2025 and will focus on OCC’s LGBTQ+ community. OCC’s ENGs are employee-led groups with self-directed activities and self-appointed leadership responsible for fostering a supportive and collaborative environment within the group.

While we have more to do, we are proud to see that during this time of intense change, our engagement index has continued to rise and is now the highest engagement score since 2016 and above the financial services benchmark.

4. Tell us about a few of your key achievements throughout your career?

Carla has more than 25 years of experience in financial services, including seven years with OCC. Carla was recognised for her exceptional leadership, talent management and development strategies when she was promoted to OCC’s Chief Human Resources Officer in 2020. Since then, Carla has led several strategic initiatives, including:

• OCC’s Career Framework initiative, a multi-year effort to update the foundational structure for all jobs at OCC. The new framework provides clearer paths for both lateral and vertical movement within the organisation, ensures OCC’s pay structure is aligned with the market, and provides robust development tools and programs to help employees manage their careers.
• Refreshed values with input from colleagues across OCC that better align with our organisation today.
• Launching OCC’s first ENG, Women’s Leadership Network, as well as additional ENGs BOLD, HOLA and HYPED. These employee-led groups advance efforts to enhance equity by providing insight into cultural differences and stronger alignment with the communities in which we work and live. 
• Establishing one and chairing another key collaborative group: the DEI Council aimed at elevating diverse voices, and the Culture Council aimed at representing colleagues at the senior leadership level and acting as a voice for how colleagues are thinking and feeling.
• Expanding colleague recognition programmes to include additional award opportunities, increased monetary compensation for awards and service anniversaries, and a peer-to-peer or manager to subordinate recognition system.
• Adoption of a market-based pay system for all colleagues.

5. What and who inspires, and has inspired, you to achieve your professional success?

What: Carla finds inspiration in working with bright, talented colleagues who are experts in their fields. In each role throughout her career, she has sought out teams filled with highly knowledgeable and sophisticated individuals who push her to work harder, think more creatively, and stay ahead of the game. For Carla, working with intelligent and driven people brings out her best and continually reminds her of the value of stepping out of her comfort zone. She believes that taking on challenges is the best way to keep growing and learning.

Who: Carla’s family is her deepest source of inspiration. Through her parents’ unconditional love and guidance, they taught her the importance of hard work and commitment. Their belief in her capabilities fueled her ambition and influenced her drive to succeed. Carla also credits much of her success to her husband and children who have inspired her to focus on work-life balance while driving the pursuit of meaningful work.

6. How have you overcome setbacks, and what advice would you give to others dealing with setbacks?

In Carla’s career, setbacks have been moments of reflection and growth, not roadblocks. Drawing from her cultural values, Carla focuses on family, perseverance and work ethic. These values provide a deep well of strength during challenging times, reminding her of her purpose and the support system she has behind her. Carla also views setbacks as opportunities to pave the way for others recognising that the broader impact of her success may inspire others. Carla has learned profound lessons from adversity. Experiencing challenges firsthand has strengthened her resilience, adaptability and strategic problem solving while reinforcing her confidence to face future challenges.

7. What advice do you have for other women who aspire to be in leadership positions? What is the biggest takeaway you want to leave with the reader?

When you’re passionate about something and give it your all, success becomes highly achievable. For women questioning whether they can balance a career and family, it’s entirely possible. A supportive network is key to pursuing both paths. Carla, who’s been a working mom since her first child was born, finds pride in her accomplishments and the example she’s setting for her kids, even though it takes effort and commitment.

As Carla sees it, climbing the career ladder comes with added responsibilities, but it also strengthens your skills and experience. That’s when leaning on your support system and learning to delegate become essential. She believes in staying true to yourself and pushing forward. Women in leadership bring unique insights and perspectives that enrich discussions and drive innovation in the workplace.