Leading Through Influence, Not Authority: Sheryl McKenzie on Cross-Functional Leadership

Some executives struggle with a fundamental challenge: how to drive transformational results when half the people you need don’t report directly to you? For Sheryl McKenzie, Western Union’s former Chief Product Officer, this challenge became her superpower. From her early days working in credit to help underserved customers access financial services to revitalizing cross-border payments at a 170-year-old company, Sheryl McKenzie has built a reputation for making the impossible happen by empowering others.

Her secret isn’t revolutionary; it’s relentlessly human. While many leaders focus on org charts and reporting structures, Sheryl McKenzie invests in what she calls “human solutions to human problems.” She’s the executive who spends her first 100 days traveling to meet frontline employees, who include marketing and engineering leaders on her leadership team, and who created the “Rocket Awards” to celebrate cross-functional wins. This approach, honed throughout her career, has delivered tangible results across F500 companies in financial services, including patented KYC processes and real-time transaction capabilities, which have endured beyond her tenure.

In this candid conversation with Margaret Jaouadi, Sheryl McKenzie reveals her tactical playbook for C-suite success – from her “multiple player in the box” accountability model to her systematic approach for breaking down departmental silos. Whether you’re eyeing the C-suite or already navigating its challenges, her insights offer a masterclass in leading through influence, not authority.

Special thanks go to Torino K. Fitzgerald, VP of Talent & Cultural Transformation at Process Technology, a long-standing client of Pacific International Executive Search, for introducing Sheryl to Margaret.

Building Credibility in Your First 100 Days

Margaret Jaouadi
Can you walk me through your transition to Chief Product Officer at Western Union? How does being part of the C-suite differ from other roles? What were your biggest challenges in those first 100 days, and how did you build credibility with stakeholders across different departments?

Sheryl McKenzie
When I reflect on my career trajectory, I spent a significant amount of time early on in the credit space, where I naturally gravitated toward customers who needed greater access to financial services. Even though I worked for American Express for 15 years, serving prime and affluent customers, this new challenge resonated with me because of my upbringing. I’m originally from Jamaica, and my family had the great fortune of gaining access to opportunities in the US, including the education system and financial instruments that enabled me to pursue an MBA and helped my family achieve homeownership.

Working with customers who required better access to financial instruments became a core focus of mine. I found myself at Mastercard, an extensive payment network, where I was bringing new global products to market. This role required managing complex ecosystem players and extending our reach across multiple countries and regions. I thoroughly enjoyed that position.

When Western Union reached out looking for a Chief Product Officer to help revitalize their cross-border payments product, it felt like the perfect alignment. Given my background from Jamaica and my focus on financial access, it was the perfect moment and the ideal product for me to lean into.

Having led teams at Fortune 500 companies at various stages of growth and maturity, I joined Western Union, a mature product with a well-established brand that was poised for innovation. Digital transformation has fundamentally changed how cross-border money movement happens, so I was excited to step into that challenge.

When you join a company with 170 years of history, you’re also stepping into established ways of working that have been around for decades. You’re entering a leadership environment where many leaders have been with the business for over 20 years. In that context, building credibility is fundamentally about establishing and maintaining relationships.

My first 100 days were focused on addressing two significant strategic commitments announced during investor day. First, driving retail channel growth. Second, improve customer retention.

I spent those first 90 days traveling to various countries, meeting with regional leaders and P&L owners, connecting with employees, customers, and partners. I needed to gain firsthand insight into how the business operated, understanding what worked well and what challenges our customers and business leaders were facing. This approach allowed leaders to see that I was viewing things from their perspective, and that as I developed a global roadmap strategy, it would account for their unique local needs and requirements for success.

Because I invested that time in the regions, working directly with local leaders, I was able to achieve meaningful compromises when it came to capital allocation decisions. Investment capital is finite, and we had to make tough choices across the C-suite about where to allocate our investments and where not to. Having spent time in the field with regional leaders, I could credibly articulate what would move the needle most broadly and get everyone on board with our strategic direction.

Margaret Jaouadi
You mentioned the importance of building relationships and credibility; how did it look in practice?

Sheryl McKenzie
I tried to break up the audience strategically. First, I focused on building rapport with my peers, the regional presidents. I spent dedicated time doing that foundational work.

Then I moved on to their direct reports, holding structured meetings with the leadership teams in each region. Beyond the leadership layer, I spent time with our employee base, specifically with the high performers in each region, who could provide me with valuable insights into what was working well.

I also made it a point to conduct “skip levels”, conversations with individuals multiple levels down in the organization. This allowed me to hear directly from their perspective about the pain points that existed and the obstacles that needed to be removed.

Finally, I spent time with customers. We strategically selected customers from two categories: those we considered strong segment performers and those who were facing challenges. I wanted to hear from both groups about what they loved about Western Union, what problems we helped them solve, and what wasn’t working for them.

One particularly telling example happened when I was in Australia. We’d arranged meetings with partners we’d invited from New Zealand and surrounding countries. I had a revealing conversation with one of our partners that resulted in identifying opportunities, both low-hanging fruit and longer-term bets, to enhance our product offering and further engage customers in the region. When he walked me through the specific challenges his business was facing, we spent time ideating on where we could lean in to make a real difference.

I was able to take those insights back with me and think differently about our Asia Pacific strategy. That breakthrough only occurred because we invested the time to meet individually with partners and high performers who had firsthand experience with the challenges and could speak to them directly.

Driving Results Without Direct Control

Margaret Jaouadi
As CPO, you worked across retail, digital banking, and B2B teams that didn’t all report to you. How do you drive results when you don’t directly control all the resources you need? Give me a specific example.

Sheryl McKenzie
I’m a big believer that the uniting force within any organization is the ability to share priorities. The priorities must be clear, and we all need to have ‘skin in the game’ for their success.

I recall one specific opportunity to drive real-time transactions, supporting our customer value proposition and enabling real-time transfers to over 100 countries. I couldn’t deliver this solution on my own. I needed buy-in and resources from the banking team, the engineering team, the compliance team, and the risk team.

The first step was to create clarity that this was an enterprise-wide problem statement that we needed to solve collectively. Second, I focused on establishing a set of metrics we could all align around: by what percentage points did we need to increase transaction speed?

I met with my peers, and we agreed that this was a priority that all our teams needed to lean into. Then I met with the leaders of each of those teams. I believe empowerment is the fuel that drives organizations, so in those meetings, we didn’t just talk about the opportunity from my perspective. We discussed obstacles and roadblocks, where they originated, and what they believed were the core issues. We then had them work collectively to define how we would solve them.

I’m a strong advocate for the “two in a box, three in a box, four in a box” concept, which fosters accountability and responsibility among leaders to work together and solve problems. We couldn’t be successful unless all of them were successful.

We did all the foundational work you’d expect: established what success looked like, defined the metrics, created a charter, and communicated that both publicly and privately. This meant not only bringing people together in meetings but also sending enterprise-wide memos about our focus, timeline for resolution, and how achieving our goals would benefit our customers and partners.

We then established an operating rhythm for the teams to work together. For this particular challenge, they needed daily standups, weekly checkpoints, and monthly review sessions.

I think being able to declare the priority publicly, the problem, what success looks like, and who is responsible and accountable for solving it went a long way. And celebrating the teams publicly when they delivered results was equally important.

As a result of this approach, we were able to further develop the value proposition of real-time transaction delivery and increase customer choice.

Creating High-Performing Cross-Functional Teams

Margaret Jaouadi
You bring together diverse teams – engineering, marketing, operations, and compliance. How do you structure these cross-functional teams to make them not just collaborative but truly high-performing?

Sheryl McKenzie
It comes down to shared OKRs. If you share the same objectives and key results, you cannot be successful without each other.

For me, it’s a three-pronged approach: metrics, roles and responsibilities, and operating rhythm.

First, in terms of metrics, we ensure that we all have the same goal and complete alignment on what we’re trying to achieve. Second, we clarify who is responsible and accountable for delivering specific results. Third, we establish the operating rhythm for how teams work together, not just collaborate, but the actual working rhythm that ensures success.

We create predictable spaces with predictable intents. There’s a designated forum to report any issues that are preventing progress toward our goals in a particular week. That’s where you go if you’re trying to move the needle on a specific matter. If there’s a need for incremental investment, a particular forum exists within our operating rhythm for that purpose. You take those issues to the right place so you can resolve anything that’s getting in the way of achieving the desired outcome.

However, I want to emphasize that it’s one team. Regardless of the divisions we report into, we share the same goal. We know who’s accountable for what. We meet together, we win together, we fail together. And if there is a failure, we have to fail fast and fail small so that we can rebuild momentum and move the teams forward.

Margaret Jaouadi
Everyone has a reason for the strategy to succeed.

Sheryl McKenzie
Exactly, and it starts from the top every time. I need to be aligned with my peers first and foremost. Then, you must assign a name to each task as clear ownership is crucial. You might say, “You are responsible for this portion of the issue this quarter; the engineering team owns the second component,” and collectively, you are all the decision makers.

I call them CEOs of their domain. I’m looking to these mini-CEOs to solve this problem for the enterprise. When people have that level of ownership and authority within their area of expertise, they’re much more invested in the overall success.

Building Organizational Capabilities

Margaret Jaouadi
How do you identify which organizational capacity needs strengthening, and how do you systematically build them? Can you share an example of a capacity that you’ve built?

Sheryl McKenzie
Every company has capabilities that are lacking or not robust enough. You can find yourself trying to boil the ocean if you choose to address all of them at once.

What I look to do first is ensure we’re all clear on the strategy, what our financial commitments are to the street, and what must be true to deliver on them. Then I conduct a capability audit.

A capability audit examines all our capabilities and asks: Where do we currently have existing strengths? Where are the gaps? Where is there a maturity issue or a capability strength problem? I then tag each capability to our strategy with a correlation assessment to determine whether it is highly correlated with the strategy or poorly correlated.

This approach enables me to determine what we need to sunset. Those capabilities that are poorly correlated with strategy and aren’t regulatory requirements present an opportunity to sunset them and reinvest that capital and those resources into elements that are highly correlated with our plan.

Let me give you a concrete example, and this one is from a few years ago before my time with Western Union. As a business, we identified that our strategy was to drive retail channel acquisition at an increased rate over the next 12-18 months. However, we discovered a bottleneck in the number of customers we could acquire at the point of sale. We ultimately focused our attention on enhancing that acquisition capability.

This capability focus has outlasted my tenure, and we built several key components. First, we enhanced our KYC process to identify and authentically confirm that a customer is who they say they are. That solution has been patented and continues to deliver value.

Second, we developed an underwriting capability at the point of sale that enables us to extend credit instantly, allowing customers to purchase more goods. Third, we have developed a real-time transaction adjudication capability that will allow us to approve or decline transactions in real-time.

These are three examples of capabilities that have outlasted my tenure, and they all came through asking: What are we trying to drive strategically? Do we have the strength and capability to get it done? And how do we create capacity to invest there by sunsetting other capabilities and reinvesting those resources and capital?

Breaking Down Silos

Margaret Jaouadi
Many companies struggle with departmental silos. How do you identify and dismantle them? What specific strategies have worked for you to create real collaboration?

Sheryl McKenzie
I think departmental silos exist because people want to do their best in delivering what they’re accountable for. Sometimes, there are blind spots about what’s required from peer organizations to be successful, or how they’re necessary to help another part of the organization succeed. The entire enterprise can’t succeed unless those groups work together.

However, I believe it’s fundamentally a human problem, and human problems are best solved with human solutions.

Let me give you some specific examples. As I mentioned, in my first 90 days, I traveled to multiple countries and regions. The intent was to build relationships, establish presence, and help people understand that their issues were my issues and my issues were theirs. You must build relationships at the top as well as within the organization.

Beyond aligned goals, you have to do the human work. I attend their department meetings and listen to their challenges. I invite them to my department meetings. Members of the marketing team, the engineering team, and others are part of my leadership team. When I say “my leadership team,” I’m referring to all departments, including legal, engineering, marketing, the works. This inclusive language gives them a sense of connectivity.

I believe it’s essential to establish a cross-functional leadership team that encompasses not only your direct reports but also those who report to them. Then, you must make them feel like part of the team through recognition.

I have a rewards and recognition program where we celebrate what we call “Rocket Awards”—you’ve done a great job this quarter. The nominations come from within, so employees nominate what they thought was incredible that quarter. The winners are cross-functional winners. It’s not just the product that was delivered. It was the product working in conjunction with marketing, leading the commercialization effort, and with engineering pushing that product out effectively and on time. You have cross-departmental winners and cross-departmental nominations.

I believe you need to approach breaking down silos from the bottom up, but you also must have the executive team driving the message that working across departments is crucial. It’s ultimately about the human element.

Embedding Excellence Beyond Your Tenure

Margaret Jaouadi
How do you embed cross-functional excellence into an organization’s DNA so it persists beyond your direct involvement? What systems do you implement?

Sheryl McKenzie
I focus on two key areas: accountability structures and operating systems.

On the accountability side, I mentioned earlier this notion that everyone is the CEO of their domain, and we run a “multiple player in the box” accountability model. At Mastercard, I ran “two in a box.” At Western Union, we’ve done “three in a box, four in a box” depending on what the initiative required.

For example, a three-in-a-box model might have the head of engineering, the head of product, and the head of a particular region all responsible for getting a new product to market on time. The buck stops with them, so they have a real incentive to work together.

The beauty of this system is that I don’t need to be there. They govern the project, oversee the meetings, and manage the routines. Whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly readouts, they’re bringing the data to the table to highlight why we should believe in the success of the initiative. On the other hand, they know the executive team is ready to support them, should the critical challenges occur.

I have utilized this approach to open new markets, develop new capabilities, and fulfill regulatory obligations. For example, I led the acquisition of a retail channel at a major financial institution. We achieved success by ensuring that the CEOs of their respective domains were responsible for making it happen.

Second, from an operational rhythm perspective, I establish a “RAG system”, a project monitoring system using red, amber, and green colors. Green projects are on track. Amber projects need support before they go red. Red projects receive immediate SWAT teams to dismantle issues and utilize first-principles problem-solving to get the initiative back on track.

Having systems in place to monitor this information is crucial. You need employees to enter data into tracking systems, transaction monitoring systems, and project management systems that manage all red, amber, and green projects. These systems enable us to maintain a clear line of sight on performance across the organization and can intervene to ensure expected outcomes and quantifiable results.

Advice for Aspiring C-Suite Leaders

Margaret Jaouadi
What advice do you have for leaders who are either considering joining the C-suite or are just about to step into a C-suite role?

Sheryl McKenzie
Two things. First, remember you are an enterprise officer, not the Chief of [fill in the blank]. You need to be astute not only about your domain but about your peers’ domains across the enterprise. You’re going to need each other, and job one is making the enterprise successful.

Second, it’s all about relationships. You cannot accomplish anything without strong relationships, and that means getting to know people for who they truly are. Do you know where they’re from? What is their home situation? What makes them tick? What struggles have they overcome?

Get out of the office, have some fun, go to dinner, and take the time to get to know the person. It will help you because the crisis will come, and you need to trust one another as you figure out how to manage through challenges.

One of the most critical relationships is the relationship with your board members, which you can hone in board meeting dinners and one-to-one meetings.

You’re an enterprise officer first, and you must build deep, trusting relationships with your peers, the board, and the organization to be successful.

Finally, I’d be remiss not to emphasize the critical role that data, technology, especially AI and automation, now plays in leadership. As a C-suite executive, you must integrate these capabilities into your strategic thinking from day one. Consider how AI can enhance customer experience, improve operational efficiency, and enable smarter decision-making across the enterprise. The future of leadership involves navigating a world where human and automated systems increasingly work together. Stay ahead of the curve to avoid getting caught off guard. Be prepared and be ‘on the front foot’ about it.

Margaret Jaouadi
Thank you, Sheryl, for this candid conversation and for sharing your expertise with our audience. I wish you every success in securing your next executive or board role.

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