Executive Director, Auto Customer Care Group
Banking came naturally to Aidis Suever, who grew up in a banking family in which both her parents were bankers in their native Albania.
"We love numbers," said Suever. "I was raised in a household where being in the banking industry was really what I knew."
Suever moved with her family to Walled Lake, Michigan, when she was 12 years old. After graduating from Kalamazoo College, she landed a job at Ally Financial in 2009 — and has worked at the $196 billion-asset Detroit bank ever since. Though Suever started as an internal auditor and then as a compliance analyst, she quickly moved into management, taking on bigger roles with increased responsibilities every two to three years.
As executive director of Ally's auto customer care group, Suever currently oversees the company's call centers operated by third-party vendors in the Philippines and, more recently, in South Africa. She manages roughly 325 employees at Ally and oversees another 1,200 people employed by vendors. Being responsible for oversight of all inbound calls from auto loan borrowers and auto dealers can be incredibly gratifying, she said.
"It's probably the most rewarding role I've had because you feel so close to the customer and every interaction can make a difference," said Suever, who is based in Detroit.
Suever regularly listens in on calls. She is encouraged that banks have made many changes over the past decade to treat customers with compassion and understanding.
"We are really focused on making sure we are doing right by the customer and looking at how we ensure that we offer different types of help with their payments and payment extension programs, including being empathetic," said Suever. "The shift across contact centers is focused on listening skills and really understanding the customer's needs."
One of her biggest challenges involved reducing the bank's reliance on its call centers in the Philippines, a saturated market where it can be tough to attract workers. Since the pandemic, attrition rates at call centers have jumped dramatically. So Suever led the effort to expand into South Africa largely because Ally expects the business process outsourcing industry to grow at a double-digit clip over the next five years.
Though South Africans have been dealing with blackouts due to the country's electricity crisis, Suever said the bank's vendors have contingency plans in place.
"A lot of our vendor partners care very closely for their employees and even have areas where they can spend the night," she said. "It's rare that we are impacted by social unrest."
Suever changed jobs four times in roughly nine years. Before landing in her current role, she worked her way up the ladder from being a supplier operations manager in payments to a director of strategy, products and analytics; then from a senior director of supplier fulfillment to a senior director of omni channel product and data management. She credits Ally executives who mentored her along the way.
"The key to my personal success was really being inquisitive and my drive to want to know more, and I had great leaders that trusted me," she said.
