A 29-year-old Angus woman is set to lead a company with 36,000 employees and annual revenues of more than $7 billion.
Hannah Ovens, from Kirriemuir, will become global software company NCR’s first-ever female chief executive after winning a company-wide competition.
Current chief executive Mike Hayford invited his colleagues to compete to step into his shoes for a day by pitching their strategy, vision and culture for the company on social media.
The regional product manager gathered enough likes, comments and shares to be noticed by NCR’s head office.
On a “nerve-racking, but exciting” company-wide call, Hannah was announced as the winner alongside Atlanta colleague Ben Lord.
NCR’s first female CEO
Normally working from NCR’s offices at Kingsway West in Dundee, Hannah is now preparing to be flown out to the Atlanta headquarters for the big day.
She says: “It’s been a rollercoaster couple of weeks.
“There’s a lot of planning now happening and I think it will be really exciting.”
Hannah’s big day is late May, so she is flying out for a full week of preparations ahead of taking the reins on NCR for the day.
Despite having worked at the firm for five years and frequently travelled to South America, the product manager has never visited the headquarters.
“I was meant to fly out in April 2020, but we all know what happened then,” she laughs.
“Our global headquarters is fairly new, so I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be a great experience.”
NCR no meeting days
The coming chief executive officer hopes to implement some of her ideas over the course of her big day.
Hannah’s top priority is having no meeting days to help support a healthy work life balance.
She says: “We have a lot of meetings and we’re on the phone a lot to keep in touch with different parts of the world.
“But if you’re on a call from eight in the morning until six at night, sometimes it’s hard enough to pop to the loo, never mind grab lunch or catch up on emails.
“I’ll then go catch up on my emails in the evening, throwing work life balance out the window.
“A no meeting day gives everyone a chance to clear their slate, there’s higher productivity and less stress in the workforce.”
@hannahovens1993 Who wants to be CEO for the day? I do! 🙋🏼♀️ please like&comment to get the 1st female CEO of NCR! #ceoforaday #ncrlife #fyp #womeninbusiness
Her pitch also included moving the firm forward as a software and services company and keeping up with cryptocurrency.
Breaking the glass ceiling
Ending the video, Hannah says “let’s see what the first female CEO of NCR can do in 24 hours”.
She thinks this is the part that caught chief executive Mike Hayford’s eye and led her to victory.
He says: “I’m looking forward to giving up my job to Hannah seeing how she brings her vision for NCR to life.
“Our company values teamwork, innovation and fun, and Hannah won the opportunity to be CEO for the day by focusing on enhancing the customer experience and making NCR an even greater place to work.”
Hannah has only briefly met the chief executive when he visited the Dundee office last year.
By stepping into his shoes for the day she hopes to make a lasting impact.
“I’m going to be the first female CEO, even if it’s just for a day I’m fine with that,” she says.
“We’ve done it, we’ve broken that glass ceiling, we’ve gone for it.
“It’ll be really exciting.”
The firm recently celebrated 75 years in Dundee.
Conversation