Torino Fitzgerald: A Transformative Approach to Leadership and Growth at Process Technology

Torino Fitzgerald isn’t your typical VP of Talent & Cultural Transformation, and neither was his journey to the role. With a unique blend of experience, professional curiosity, and a commitment to continuous learning, Torino brings a visionary approach to leadership that drives exceptional results. Achieving successful business transformation demands more than vision; it requires calculated risks and a steadfast commitment to building the right leadership team, creating repeatable processes, and developing talent with transferable skills. For Torino and Process Technology, this journey toward transformation included a straightforward supplier search that quickly evolved into a strategic partnership with Pacific International.

Through this trusted relationship with Pacific International, a retained executive search firm, Process Technology gained top-tier talent essential for leading the company’s growth and impact within the semiconductor industry. As Torino shares his insights with Margaret Jaouadi, he provides a powerful example of how a targeted approach to leadership and partnerships can unlock extraordinary potential for long-term success.

Special thanks to Adam Nuzie, CCO of Pacific International, for introducing Torino Fitzgerald to Margaret Jaouadi.

Margaret Jaouadi
Could you share your professional journey and describe your vision for Process Technology?

Torino Fitzgerald
My core competency lies in change management, where I’ve led several transformational initiatives across various teams and organizational goals. My experience includes building new teams from the ground up—translating strategic objectives into actionable plans, recruiting the right talent, and executing effectively. I’ve also taken on the challenge of revitalizing underperforming teams, helping them align with and realize their potential within the organization’s vision.

I spent about 20 years at American Express, serving in multiple roles that gave me a broad perspective on change management. Before that, I worked in consulting with Accenture and Andersen Worldwide. I left American Express in 2016, and in the wake of the George Floyd incident, I found myself questioning the impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. This led me to create a board composed of senior leaders from private equity, financial services, manufacturing, and other sectors to address a core question: How can we build a DEI program that generates sustainable value, regardless of economic cycles?

From that initiative, I developed a problem-solving framework based on several core principles, which I then piloted here at Process Technology. This led to three successful projects and, eventually, to my current role as VP of Talent and Cultural Transformation.

In terms of my vision for Process Technology, I believe this company has the potential to become a billion-dollar enterprise. We’re positioned in the semiconductor industry—a critical area that aligns with U.S. government priorities, especially with the push to bring manufacturing capabilities back to the U.S. Process Technology has a reliable portfolio of products that resonate strongly with our customers, and we’re embedded at key stages in the chip manufacturing process, which involves thousands of steps.

The question now is: How do we scale this business in a way that not only drives financial success but also enhances our relevance within the supply chain, the chip manufacturing process, and our customers? I see an exciting path forward for Process Technology, one where we can leverage our strengths to deliver greater value to our clients and the industry at large.

Margaret Jaouadi
What unique strengths and qualities have prepared you to lead Process Technology through its next phase of growth?

Torino Fitzgerald
I believe successful performance is about 90% experience and 10% talent. With over 20 years of experience driving transformation projects, I bring a proven track record and am ready to contribute from day one. My experience and results speak directly to my capability in this field.

Several factors uniquely position me for this role. First and foremost, I’m a change management expert—most of my career has centred around this field. Even before I pursued my MBA, I was at Northwestern working toward a Master’s in Learning and Organizational Change, which is all about change management but goes deeper, into the study of cognition. This training equipped me to understand human motivation at a complex level. I think five steps ahead when I hear someone’s thoughts, assessing the motivations and implications underlying their words. This depth of understanding allows me to manage people effectively.

I’ve been leading teams since I was 27, often large teams, and often in the context of transformation initiatives within high-stakes environments. At American Express, my clients were senior leaders—presidents, EVPs, and SVPs. My team was responsible for executing their highest-priority projects each year, aligning with their goals to ensure their success. These were high-pressure, highly visible projects, and this is where I built my expertise—leading critical initiatives in fast-paced conditions.

At the core of my approach is a rigorous focus on change management. I analyze the current state of operations and reimagine them across people, processes, and technology. From there, I create a roadmap and lead the teams and systems to achieve that new vision. I consider this a science, and I’ve refined my approach over 15 to 20 years—both as an individual contributor and as a leader of teams. Working at American Express, with its 174-year legacy of leadership, has instilled a high standard of excellence in everything I do.

Margaret Jaouadi
I’d add a few more skills to that, particularly strong communication abilities. To drive effective change, it’s essential to have a clear vision and communicate it in a way that resonates with people and helps them see how they fit into that vision. I believe this is one of your core strengths—translating complex ideas into clear, relatable, and actionable messages that inspire and align teams toward a common goal.

Torino Fitzgerald
Thank you. I’m a strong communicator, and I believe that effective communication is often misunderstood. Many people focus on grammar or sentence structure, but true communication is about structured thinking which provides the clarity and organization needed for meaningful communication.

As a leader, being an effective communicator is essential. If you can’t convey your ideas, your ability to unlock the potential of your team or organization will be limited. This structured approach to communication is something I prioritize, as it’s fundamental to driving real impact and alignment.

Margaret Jaouadi
What have you learned from your past leadership roles that you are applying here?

Torino Fitzgerald
I come from American Express, a company that is deeply focused on leadership. During my time there, I had the privilege of working under then-CEO Ken Chenault, who is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost examples of leadership. He was highly respected by his peers, including Warren Buffett, and set the standard for leadership within the company. At American Express, we were held accountable for being strong leaders. There was a specific way we were expected to lead, and we were trained rigorously on how to lead people with diverse skill sets, motivations, and ambitions.

Leadership, however, means nothing if you can’t execute. I learned how to drive results from Anré Williams, who is also a senior leader at American Express. His maniacal focus on execution and P/L management was a masterclass. Observing him from a distance shift to a visionary leader is a case study of transformation.

Leadership isn’t something you can just read about and immediately apply; it’s learned through experience. You can only truly become a leader by being placed in a variety of situations—good, bad, indifferent, and even horrible—and figuring out how to navigate them. In most cases, you’ll make mistakes along the way, but the more diverse the situations and people you encounter, the stronger you become as a leader.

I’ve developed my approach to leadership over time, and I play the long game. Some may not fully understand my approach, but it works for me, and over time, I earn the trust and respect of the people I lead. One of my key practices is providing feedback that is both cumulative and transformational. Yes, you’ll always get direct, functional feedback—like how you could have given the speaker more time during a meeting—but I also focus on the bigger picture.

However, the true measure of leadership is being able to guide people in areas where you may not be an expert yourself. For instance, how do you coach an accountant when you’re not one? That’s where I truly make a difference—not in the technical aspects, but in unlocking the potential of the person, in helping them lead transformation in their area, even if it’s not something I directly understand. Some might criticize this and say, “You don’t understand the function, so you’re not a good leader.” But those same people are often the ones who micromanage, stifle motivation and fail to truly lead their teams.

I’m not perfect—I’ve been at this for over 20 years—but I have developed a set of tried-and-true practices that work because I’ve lived them. I don’t just rely on theory; I’ve applied these methods with real, tangible results. I’ve built senior leaders across the financial services industry—many of whom I hired at American Express, and who have gone on to become senior leaders at other top financial institutions. So, I’m doing something right.

And I bring that experience to my role here at Process Technology.

Margaret Jaouadi
Now let’s focus on Process Technology. The company operates in a dynamic space. Could you talk about the main challenges the company has been facing?

Torino Fitzgerald
Two key challenges come to mind immediately. First, we navigated significant supply chain disruptions from COVID-19 early in my tenure here, and it’s only recently that we’ve fully emerged from those effects. This period stress-tested our people, our processes, and our readiness for growth, prompting us to ask, Are we truly ready for prime time? The answer was clear: we weren’t yet where we needed to be. Our processes lacked scalability, and we didn’t have enough repeatable systems in place. Additionally, some roles required new capabilities to meet the higher demands of a growing company.

To address this, we prioritized building strong, repeatable processes, ensuring we had the right people, and refining our leadership approach. This work had to happen simultaneously across these areas—strengthening processes, investing in people, and developing leaders.

The second challenge was preparing our leaders for this new era of growth. We needed leaders with skills suited to a complex and fast-evolving environment. This goes beyond traditional leadership skills; it’s about building self-awareness, and ensuring they can manage themselves before leading others. It’s about cultivating problem-solving skills and structured thinking, so leaders have a clear process for addressing challenges. Storytelling skills are also essential—leaders need to communicate compelling visions that resonate across functions and levels within the organization.

Additionally, collaboration, imagination, and adaptability are vital. Leaders must work effectively across teams, envision future possibilities, and guide their teams forward. These are the skills of the future—the essential capabilities for thriving in an AI-driven, multicultural, and multigenerational workforce.

Margaret Jaouadi
What key steps did you take to address these challenges and to drive transformation?

Torino Fitzgerald
When it comes to any transformation, new role, or new challenge, the first thing you need to do in the first 90 days is establish a clear point of view on the problem and form a hypothesis on how to approach solving it. Then, as you engage with key stakeholders and assess people, processes, and the environment, you continuously iterate, calibrating your approach against your vision of what needs to happen. Without this, you’re like a leaf in the wind, reacting to every new idea without a clear direction.

Very early in my tenure here, within the first 90 to 120 days, I had a defined perspective on how to drive cultural transformation, focusing initially on process. This decision was rooted in a fundamental belief: you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your processes and systems. Given the supply chain challenges we faced, largely as a result of COVID-19 disruptions, I knew we needed to establish repeatable processes to deliver a defect-free product to our customers. Once we had this in place, we could apply the same mindset across other functions, such as finance and talent management.

Processes are key, but they alone aren’t enough. People must be in place to ensure those processes are effective. Relying solely on processes leads to stagnation while depending only on people leaves you vulnerable to disruption during turnover. Therefore, establishing solid processes, and then aligning the right people to manage and innovate those processes, became critical.

To that end, we worked with Pacific International Executive Search to help us staff a key leadership role focused on quality and process discipline. With the right person in place to lead that charge, we could shift focus to our most senior leaders—ensuring we had the right leaders with the necessary skills to guide the company through its transformation and future growth. We took a strategic approach, assessing leaders’ cultural fit within the organization.

As part of that, we recently implemented a comprehensive 360-degree leadership feedback process, widely recognized in the industry. This assessment ties leadership performance to engagement and culture, allowing each leader to see where they stand across key leadership practices—whether they’re falling short, meeting expectations, or excelling. The next step is to debrief and work with leaders to chart a pathway for improvement, ensuring alignment with the company’s needs and values. We have a clear understanding of the leadership skills required and a roadmap to help leaders evolve.

With processes and leadership in place, we turned our attention to people. I think of the skills people need to succeed in three categories: technical skills specific to their roles, leadership behaviors aligned with our company values, and the leadership skills we’ve discussed, such as self-awareness, problem-solving, and communication. We integrated these behaviors into our performance management system to ensure we’re cultivating the right skill set at all levels.

At this point, we have processes, leadership, and people well-defined, but we also need to ensure we have a clear strategy for growth. How has our strategy fared in the past, what tweaks are necessary for the future, and how do we rally everyone behind a unified vision that can drive us to our goals?

Finally, we need to leverage external partnerships to support our growth—how do we align with the broader ecosystem to enable our success? These are the key components that will help us achieve our transformation and sustain long-term growth.

Margaret Jaouadi
Could you share how partnering with Pacific International helped address Process Technology’s leadership challenges?

Torino Fitzgerald
At a high level, what Pacific has done is help us put the right people in place, particularly in areas that are critical to our success. This includes leadership in sales, as well as leaders, focused on driving repeatable processes across the company at every level. Just these two areas alone are foundational to what we need to focus on to build a solid base for growth.

It’s not just about growth—it’s also about creating the culture necessary to sustain that growth. Pacific has nailed it in terms of aligning the right people with the right strategic priorities, ensuring we have the leadership and structure in place that will ultimately drive our growth and success.

Margaret Jaouadi
Pacific International is a retained executive search firm and you mentioned that you have never worked with a retained executive search provider so can you tell me about the objections that you had and how you overcame them?

Torino Fitzgerald
I think the main differentiating factor for me was that this was my first experience in the human resources and talent space. I had never held an HR role before; I’ve always reported to practice line leaders—those who manage P&L—and have been at the forefront of transformations within those organizations. So, this was my first “headquarters” job, so to speak.

Previously, I came from a large company that relied on its internal resources for sourcing talent. Because of that, I didn’t fully understand the nuances between a retained search and a contingent recruitment company. Those terms didn’t carry much meaning for me at first. However, after being in the space long enough, I realized that working with a retained search firm meant an upfront payment. That was something I wasn’t accustomed to.

But I think what truly sealed the deal with Pacific was a combination of factors. First, I was open to working with anyone at that point, as everyone was reaching out to me. I was the new person on the block, and naturally, everyone wanted a piece of Process Technology. I operate from a mindset of “Show Me,” so I am not easily convinced. I heard the same sales pitches from everyone, and honestly, they all started to sound the same. I would just tell them, “Alright, show me what you can do.”

When I spoke with Adam, I realized Pacific’s approach was unique—not just in terms of pricing, but also their flexibility. I’m not typically flexible with payment terms, but Adam was willing to work with me. That flexibility was the turning point. I decided to give them a chance with the retained search model, and I’m so glad I did.

From there, it’s been nothing short of incredible. Pacific has felt like family. I’ve worked with several people there, and regardless of who I’ve worked with, the quality has been consistent. They’ve found top-tier talent for us, and I’m honestly thrilled that I took the chance on them. They have delivered far beyond my expectations, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the incredible talent they’ve placed with Process Technology.

Margaret Jaouadi
What advice would you offer peers considering a strategic talent partnership and what does working with an executive search firm compare to a staffing agency?

Torino Fitzgerald
If you truly believe that performance is 90% experience and 10% talent, then working with experts is key. When that’s all they do—when they’ve spent their careers and their company’s history refining their craft—you simply can’t compete with that. You can’t match it internally unless you already have that capability on your team.

Pacific International is precisely that: a capability. It’s not just the people—they have a consistent, repeatable process that delivers the same outstanding quality of talent every time. Regardless of who you work with at Pacific, you can expect the same level of excellence. They’ve built a capability that drives consistency, predictability, and top-tier talent for their clients.

If you want a true differentiator, you work with a capability like this. You can either build it, leverage it, or recognize the gap when it’s missing. That’s what Pacific offers: a capability that makes a real difference.

Margaret Jaouadi
Thank you for your kind words. I wouldn’t be able to put it myself like this. You draw the essence of this into this kind of single impactful description that just makes everything clear.

Torino Fitzgerald
The language of transformation comes naturally to me, but that’s because I have 20 years of experience backing it. It’s not something I expect everyone to understand immediately. I’ve built that language over time through hands-on experience, which is why I can speak with authority on it.

And thank you for acknowledging that. But honestly, transformation is always on my mind. It’s not just something I think about during discussions like this—I think about it all the time. I think about it when I’m driving in, on weekends, late at night. I constantly evaluate—what’s working, what isn’t, what needs to change, and how I can approach it differently. I’m fully committed to driving this transformation, and I’m deeply engaged in the process.

You’ve got to be passionate about what you’re doing because, without that, it’s easy to give up. But this is the kind of dedication that drives real change.

Margaret Jaouadi
With such strong foundations in place, what are the future priorities for you and Process Technology?

Torino Fitzgerald
At the end of the day, it’s all about growth. What we’re building here is an enduring company, one that leaves a lasting impact on the semiconductor industry—not just in the United States, but globally.

Achieving that vision requires the right processes, leadership, team members, strong partnerships, and a clear, focused strategy. These elements will guide us toward a single, unified outcome.

Everyone plays a role in this. Depending on your function, title, and responsibilities, you should focus on one of these five areas of focus. Every part matters as we work together toward that common goal.

Margaret Jaouadi
I wish you every success and will cheer for you from London.

For a confidential chat about how Pacific International can assist you with your Talent Acquisitions and Diversity challenges, please contact Manuel Preg or one of our Executive Search Consultants specialising in your sector.