Women@WU is excited to launch a new program that spotlights the Extraordinary Contributions of women at Western Union.
Women who are leading the way and executing game-changing initiatives that are driving our strategy forward. Extraordinary Contributions can come from any region and any level in the organization.
Egle Bendoraityte
Leader, Operations
Vilnius, Lithuania
Egle led an 8-week leadership development program, from proposal to execution, within the Platform Operations Quality Assurance team in 2020. The program provided weekly leadership training to people leaders and emerging talent on topics such as ‘Situational Leadership’, ‘Coaching Fundamentals’, ‘Building Leadership Brands’, and one specifically dedicated to ‘Women in Leadership’. This incredible program became the foundation for the Platform Operations people strategy that focused on talent cultivation and career development. She has since expanded to lead other teams through select modules.
Nicole Ayres
Group Leader, Compliance
Denver, United States
In 2020, Western Union piloted a One Company / One Exam for multiple Western Union entities, including WUFSI, WUIS, and WUBS. Nikki led Western Union’s response, coordinating internal stakeholders and with multiple state regulators. This multi-state exam was one of the first of its kind, providing significant efficiencies not only for Western Union but for regulators, and was deemed a success.
Emily Larson
Manager, Foundation Communications
Denver, United States
Emily has been the leading force to creating the Mentorship Beyond Borders program which enables employees to contribute to the Western Union Foundation’s (WUF) commitment to helping create equal access to the global economy. This virtual program allows employees to volunteer their time to young people across the globe and support their goals of a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities, through mentorship.
Marie-Elise Droga
Head, Global Strategic Partnerships
San Francisco, United States
Marie-Elise led and negotiated the complex partnership discussions with Walmart US – the world’s largest retailer – bringing this opportunity to fruition with an agreement made public on January 18, 2021. She oversaw the activation of WU Money Transfer and domestic payment services across Walmart’s 4700 US locations and then transitioned the day-to-day management of this strategic partner to the local US business team. Marie-Elise’s unique approach ensured sustained focus on deal priorities, instilled a problem-solving mindset and brought leadership across a diverse set of critical stakeholders internally and externally.
Olga Gerassimova
Head of Compliance, Products, KYC & Strategic Partnerships
Moscow, Russia
Olga embodies an enterprise mindset and was instrumental in helping push risk-based changes to our approach for white label partners that will help the business scale more efficiently, save time and improve the experience for partners. Currently, she drives the creation of the right compliance frameworks as Western Union opens up our platform for partners around the world.
Belinda McCulloch
Senior Client Account Manager
Vancouver, Canada
Belinda took a leadership role in training and mentoring the Western Union Business Solutions Education Vertical Teams in North America. She goes above and beyond, giving her time and expertise to help others build their knowledge and confidence allowing them to be successful in their roles and help the business grow.
Jenny Wu
Country Director, China
Beijing, China
Jenny oversees a large and complex portfolio with compelling global banks, strategic key accounts, creative digital FIs and non FIs in China, the second largest remittance receiving market in the world. She led the end-to-end negotiation with Alipay and signed up this critical partnership to enable Western Union digital real time payout capability to over 280 banks via Alipay wallet. Jenny navigated the discussions across different business lines with Alipay as well as internally within WU. She has laid the foundation for further expanding the relationship across different use cases and in markets to further enhance WU’s leading position in cross-border money transfer with strong digital footprint.
Joy Miller
Head of Corporate Affairs & ESG
Denver, United States
Joy has exhibited phenomenal leadership and vision for in the evolving space of corporate social responsibility, environmental, social and governance reporting and strategy, and our overall mission and purpose as a company. She has an exceptional ability to connect the dots across our global company in a time of significant change and development in the fintech industry and Western Union‘s own journey.
Giedrė Maldutienė
Group Leader of Settlement Operations
In addition to her current role Giedrė has been leading WU Lithuania Training & Development Committee since 2017. This ecosystem provides development and support for Western Union employees. It has become a critical part of Western Union’s ability to maintain employee engagement and is a significant item in our benefits basket. Employees can grow personally and professionally using the knowledge they gain from these training courses or one-on-one coaching sessions, provided by internal trainers or professional coaches on a voluntary basis. Over the years, employee growth has led to more efficient processes, greater collaboration, and a stronger company. The Training & Development program has provided the opportunity for Western Union colleagues to share their passions and knowledge and has inspired many. In Spring 2022 alone, the program delivered 27 training classes (soft skills, hard skills, and languages) to over 250 unique WU Lithuania employees. Fifty-two different employees took advantage of one-on-one coaching sessions. This unique program provides benefits both to the company and to every individual employee.
Diana Hidalgo
Enterprise Business Excellence & Assurance Analyst
Through her work, Diana spotted longer than average contract execution lead-times in Africa. Diana knew that shortening lead times would help Western Union agents start serving their customers more quickly. To get started, she conducted an initial baseline analysis to develop current vs ideal benchmarks. Then, Diana quickly coordinated a cross-functional team which included the head of Africa, Operational Excellence and local sales representatives. Under Diana’s leadership, the team eliminated a backlog of over 100 contracts. They also optimized the E2E process and implemented dashboards to provide real-time visibility. Diana lives our company motto of See, Own, Do and exemplifies the WU behavior – better comes from everywhere.
Mahak Somani
Sr. Associate Technology and Governance
In August of 2021, Western Union migrated to a new time entry tool called Tempo Timesheet. This tool was intended to help Western Union employees and contractors more easily track time spent on their activities. Transferring 2000+ employees from the old system to Tempo Timesheet could have been a manual, time-consuming process. Instead, Mahak created a utility program to migrate employees to the new tool. This saved many hours of effort and also eliminated the potential errors that could have come from a manual migration. Mahak also created a program to generate on-demand time entry reporting for the Western Union accounting team. This involved combining data from three different sources: Tempo, Workday (for FTE data), and IQN (contractor data). These reports help the accounting team calculate capitalizable efforts and ultimately impact Western Union’s financial performance. Mahak took the initiative to both improve the process of migrating to Tempo AND give the accounting team easily accessible time tracking information. Great work, Mahak!
Rupa Maganahalli
Group Leader IT
During Western Union’s peak volume days, it’s important to ensure that operations run seamlessly. As a WU Director of IT Operations- Head of Enterprise AMS and Release management, Rupa has accomplished just that. She implemented a Peak Season Readiness effort across WU Digital and Retail Money transfer platform operations. This process brings the relevant enterprise teams together to complete preliminary checks in each area. The readiness check also identifies risks and ensure that risks are addressed prior to the peak season start. Rupa’s strategic vision and end to end ownership made the 2021 peak season the smoothest on record. Most notable, there were zero issues reported during peak season across the Digital, Retail, Care, and Infrastructure portfolios. In addition to her business accomplishments, Rupa’s colleagues report that she is a magnificent leader who truly leads by example. Congratulations and thank you for your hard work, Rupa!
The Extraordinary Contributions program recognizes women, regardless of level or location, who are leading the way with key initiatives, while demonstrating the WU Values. Nominations can come from anywhere and are evaluated by the Women@WU Steering Committee. Extraordinary Contributions recognizes that it’s not just about what gets done, but how it gets done and Women@WU is proud to recognize these amazing leaders.
