Diane Dou is a rising star in the banking world, embracing her role as chief experience officer at BlueShore Financial
Words Lauren Kramer, Photography Lia Crowe
From her office at BlueShore Financial’s headquarters in North Vancouver, Diane Dou can see Vancouver’s famous Lions Gate Bridge and her adopted city of the past 23 years. As the credit union’s chief experience officer, she leads its Wealth Management, Solution Centre and branch network strategy and operations.
It’s a broad role that calls for a strategic mindset, innovative thinking and a compassionate leadership style, but Diane loves her work and is excited about the future of BlueShore.
Her life has changed significantly since she first left China for Vancouver in 2000. In her late 20s at the time, Diane had little grasp of English and no friends or family in Canada. She rented a room in a basement and spent her first eight months trying to find work.
“Travel wasn’t foreign to me because I’d worked in the airline industry in China,” she reflects. “But I realized quickly that traveling somewhere as a visitor and moving to a place to build a new life are two entirely different things.”
Diane began to settle down after she secured a job as a software engineer and data architect at HSBC. Over the next three years, she realized her preference was business rather than information technology. So, when a manager gave her a chance to transition from one to the other, Diane jumped at the opportunity. In her new position, she used banking transaction data to form a customer engagement strategy.
“That was a breaking point in my career—the realization of how powerful technology could be for the banking industry,” she said. “I realized I could add value, influence and deliver impact on something I was passionate about, and my career took off quite quickly.”
Diane’s passion involved using customer transaction data to reveal the emotional side of finance management and using this information to design and implement banking solutions that would help manage customers’ journeys and their life events more effectively.
“Financial services is an emotion-driven industry,” she reflects. “It’s a business about compassion and helping people manage their financial health and wellness—one of the most intimate and foundational things in life. But the industry as a whole is more focused on transactions, efficiencies, revenue and profit building. Most banks forget to examine the pattern of struggle and success that customers go through.”
With her background as a data architect, Diane could easily read the financial transactions to trace the emotional journey the bank’s clients were taking. She made it her mission to create strategies that could help customers navigate that emotional journey and create positive impacts in their financial lives. She continues this mission today at BlueShore Financial.
As a woman, particularly a Chinese woman, on the rise in the banking and financial sector, Diane quickly attracted attention. Chinese media requested interviews, asking her to share her story of success in a new country. Diane complied but tempers the narrative by pointing out that she counts herself extremely lucky.
“The leadership I worked under helped me by giving me the opportunity to spread my wings,” she notes. “There are many talented immigrants in this country, but people don’t always recognize their potential or give them a chance to shine.”
Diane is remarkable among those immigrants for her tenacity and determination. While working at HSBC, she studied for a Master’s degree in business administration at Simon Fraser University—pregnant with her son at the time. It was a challenging experience that required juggling work and study with the demands of marriage, and she admits it was tough to keep all the balls in the air at once.
“When you’re chasing your career and figuring out who you are in a new country, you become a different person,” she reflects. “I came from a traditional Chinese background where women tend to focus on the home, and as my career took off, it impacted my marriage.”
Diane became a single mother when her son was two years old. But nothing slowed her down.
She spent 16 years at HSBC, eventually becoming chief operating officer for the company’s retail banking and wealth management division. She made the transition to the credit union sector when she joined Prospera Credit Union, and later served as Ernst & Young Canada’s western Canada market leader for financial services, where she led the consulting practice for regional banks, credit unions, private capital firms and wealth management firms.
In early 2023 she joined BlueShore Financial where she drives the retail and wealth management strategy for the credit union.
“My job is to lead the distribution channel that delivers specific results according to our clients’ needs,” she explains. “My role is all about the client experience and the type of experience we can offer clients to support their life stage, financial needs and aspirations. We design a premium experience and curate it to suit each individual with the goal of building financial health, financial well-being and financial resilience into people’s lives.”
BlueShore’s branch experience is uniquely inspired by the West Coast, using music, lighting, décor, aromatherapy and even a concierge to foster a Zen-like experience across its 12 branches, which are spread between Vancouver, Burnaby, the North Shore and the Sea-to-Sky Corridor.
As she embraces her new position, Diane has high ambitions.
“I want BlueShore to continue to be known as one of the few financial institutions that are focused on emotional banking,” she says. “But it’s also crucial that BlueShore is very cutting edge and innovative in how we deliver an experience in both a physical and a digital space. We aim to treat people the way they want to be treated.”
That’s a message that Diane brings into her volunteer work, too. A longtime volunteer in vulnerable communities that include women and girls suffering from domestic violence, refugees and other less fortunate populations, she volunteers for multiple non-profit organizations located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This summer, she is cooking and serving free lunch at the Union Gospel Mission with her son.
“I firmly believe one should lead by example, with compassion,” she says. “I want my son to understand that we have a privileged life, and that we should use that privilege to help others.”
從北溫 BlueShore Financial 總部辦公室遠眺，Diane Dou 可以看到著名的獅門大橋，以及她度過了 23 個春秋的城市——溫哥華。作為這家信用合作社的首席體驗官，她負責領導財富管理、解決方案中心和分行網絡的戰略和運營。這一職位需要具有戰略思維、創新思維和同理心的領導風格。但 Diane 熱愛她的工作，對 BlueShore 的未來感到充滿信心。
Diane 於 2000 年從中國移居溫哥華，人生從此發生巨變。當年她年近 30 歲，幾乎不會說英語，也沒有任何朋友或家人。她租了一間地下室住下來，花了 8 個月時間找工作。
“我曾在中國的航空公司工作過，所以對旅行並不陌生。”她回憶說，“但我很快就意識到，作為一名游客和建立新生活完全兩碼事。”
直到獲得匯豐銀行的軟件工程師和數據架構師職位， Diane 的生活才開始穩定下來。在接下來的 3 年裡，她發現自己更喜歡商業而不是信息技術。因此，當一位經理給了她轉行的機會時，Diane 欣然接受。在新的職位上，她使用銀行交易數據為客戶制定參與戰略。
“那是我職業生涯的一個轉折點——我認識到技術對銀行業有多麼強大，”她說。“意識到我可以為自己所熱愛的事業提升價值、擴大影響力，並帶來改變，我的事業迅速騰飛。”
Diane 善於分析金融數據，揭示財務管理背後的情感面，並利用這些信息，設計和實施銀行解決方案，以更有效地管理客戶的各個人生階段和重大事件。
“金融服務本質上是情感驅動的行業，”她反思道。“這是一個關乎同情心、幫助人們管理財務健康和福祉的行業，與生活中最親密、最基本所需息息相關。但整個行業更注重交易、效率、收入和利潤。大多數銀行忽略了客戶的奮鬥歷程和成功模式的重要性。”
憑藉她作為數據架構師的背景，Diane 可以輕易解析金融交易數據，追蹤客戶的情感之旅。她的使命是創建戰略，幫助客戶掌握自己的情感，并為他們的財務生活帶來正面影響。如今，她在 BlueShore Financial 繼續履行這一使命。
作爲女性，尤其是在銀行業崛起的華裔女性，Diane 很快受到矚目。中文媒體紛紛要求採訪，分享她在新的國度的成功之道。Diane 欣然答應，認爲自己非常幸運。
她指出：“我的領導給了我機會發揮所長，對我的成長很重要。這個國家有很多優秀的移民，但人們往往忽略了他們的潛力，沒有給予機會。”
在衆多移民中，Diane 以其堅韌不拔的精神脫穎而出。在滙豐銀行工作期間，她一邊懷孕生子，一邊攻讀西門菲沙大學的工商管理碩士學位。她坦言，在工作、學習和家庭之間做到遊刃有餘很困難。
“當你在一個新的國家裡追求事業，尋找自我時，你會成爲一個不同的人。“她回憶道，”我來自一個傳統的中國家庭，女性通常專注於家庭，而當我的事業起飛時，我的婚姻也受到了影響。”
在兒子兩歲時，Diane 成為單身母親，但並沒有阻礙她繼續前進。
效力於滙豐銀行 16 年之後，她終於成為零售銀行和財富管理部門的首席運營官。隨後她轉到信用合作社領域，加入 Prospera Credit Union，後來擔任安永加拿大金融服務加西市場負責人，領導區域銀行、信用社、私募基金和財富管理公司的諮詢業務。
2023 年初，她加入 BlueShore Financial，負責推動信用合作社的零售和財富管理戰略。
她解釋說：“我的工作是領導團隊根據客戶的需求提供定制化的服務和體驗。我的角色是完全關注客戶體驗，爲他們人生的每一階段、財務需求和抱負提供支持。我們設計了高端的客戶體驗，並根據每個人的需求進行個性化規劃，進行精心策劃，將財務健康、財務福祉和財務彈性融入到他們的生活。”
BlueShore 的分行體驗以西海岸為靈感，採用音樂、燈光、裝飾、香薰療法，甚至禮賓服務，為溫哥華、本那比、北岸以及海天走廊一帶 12 間分行營造出禪意的氛圍。
面對新工作，Diane 充滿熱情和抱負。
她說：“我希望 BlueShore 繼續成為少數專注於情感化銀行業務的金融機構之一。同樣重要的是，BlueShore 在實體和數字體驗方面繼續保持創新和領先。我們的宗旨是以人爲本。
這也是 Diane 在志願工作中所傳達的信息。她長期從事志願工作，在溫哥華市中心東端多個非盈利機構為遭受家暴的婦女和女陔、難民和其他弱勢群體提供服務。今年夏天，她和兒子在聯合福音教會烹飪並提供免費午餐。
“我堅信一個人應以身作則，富有同情心，”她說。“我希望兒子明白，我們生活優越，應更好地幫助他人。”
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