Suzanne Rurode: Leading Beyond Borders, Building Growth That Lasts

For Suzanne Rurode, leadership has always been about being curious and asking questions, developing deeply rooted client relationships, creating the conditions for others to succeed, and building organizations capable of continuously transforming themselves.

Early in her career, Suzanne believed leadership meant being the best role model, personally driving results, and having the answers to her clients’ questions. Over time, she learned that softening those perfectionist traits allowed her to become more curious, collaborative, and ultimately more effective.

That evolution has shaped a global career spanning consulting, commercial strategy, operations, customer experience, and organizational transformation. Working in person in more than 50 countries has further transformed her understanding of business, people, and leadership, teaching her that sustainable growth requires both strategic discipline and the humility to listen, adapt, and learn.

Her philosophy is straightforward: lasting results come from decisions that strengthen both business performance and the people responsible for delivering it.

From Strategy to Global Perspective

Suzanne’s professional journey began in the United States before expanding into global leadership, a transition that fundamentally changed the way she understood customers, business growth, and organizational transformation.

Following her graduation from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Suzanne joined The Nielsen Company. There, she worked on the Kraft Foods account. For her, it was an “exceptional experience” as she tapped into her analytical skills to support the company and the brands Kraft Foods, later including Mondelez, had within its portfolio.

“To this day, I am brand-loyal to all items Kraft and Mondelez,” she says.

She spent 17 years at The Nielsen Company because, she points out, it had “fantastic HR programs” for high-potential leaders.

Working across diverse markets taught her that strategies successful in one market cannot simply be replicated elsewhere. Sustainable growth requires cultural curiosity, local insight, and the ability to adapt while maintaining a consistent purpose.

“Snacking in Brazil, India or Indonesia is completely different than it is in Singapore, Germany or Japan,” Suzanne states.

Her experience analyzing consumer insight about brands and the people who buy them has led her to develop a deep understanding of consumers and customers, as well as marketing and branding across the world.

Becoming what she describes as a true citizen of the world broadened her perspective. She learned to care globally about customers, people, teams, and organizational performance while recognizing that every market brings its own expectations, realities, and opportunities.

Consulting taught Suzanne to ask better questions and see problems from multiple perspectives. Commercial strategy developed a laser focus on customers and reinforced that relationships were central to mutual success. Operations taught her the discipline of turning strategy into measurable results.

Executive leadership ultimately brought those experiences together as Suzanne began running businesses, companies, and P&Ls around the world.

Over ten years ago, Suzanne transitioned from the information and professional services space to tech-enabled services. While she did not know anything about the background-screening industry, she did know how to grow revenue, scale global companies, develop long-term client relationships, and hire the best people with meaningful skill sets rather than simply experts in the existing industry.

At First Advantage, she began learning the discipline, urgency, and demands of private equity. She turned the enterprise from separate regional business units into a cohesive global company.

She ran the P&L across client teams, operations, product, finance, information security, legal, and HR. Under her leadership, margins grew 20% and revenues grew 50% in under two years.

Today, she sees lasting impact as the connection between vision, execution, and the teams that embrace partnership outcomes every day they come to work.

The Leadership Journey

Consulting
Ask better questions and see multiple perspectives

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Commercial Strategy
Put customers and relationships at the center

↓

Operations
Turn strategy into measurable results

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Global Leadership
Connect vision, execution, people, and partnership

The Human Potential Behind Performance

One of Suzanne’s most unexpected lessons from leading across cultures is that human potential is far less constrained by geography, culture, or circumstance than by the expectations people have of themselves and those placed upon them.

When people are given trust, purpose, and the opportunity to contribute meaningfully, they often exceed what leaders, and sometimes they themselves, believed was possible.

This belief has influenced how she develops talent.

Suzanne has been widely recognized for building “destination teams” within the organizations in which she has worked. In her early days, she had a waiting list of mentees who selected Suzanne as their mentor. With more than 75 mentors available, Suzanne was the only person with a waiting list.

She has also built teams of strictly high performers from zero to 400 people across the globe.

Suzanne is known for holding people accountable to deliver value creation for customers, often measuring client engagements with a quantifiable ROI in order to assess impact. She has been able to identify and attract the best talent within organizations by expecting people to take demanding roles and stretch themselves.

With the very best people, Suzanne believes in promoting them before they are 100% ready. The true standouts will step up to the role, often catapulting into it because of their enthusiasm and their knowledge that their leader believes in them.

For Suzanne, leadership is therefore not simply about identifying capability.

It is about creating the confidence for people to use it.

That philosophy has also changed how she evaluates business decisions.

The right business decision may be driven by data, financial outcomes, and strategic priorities. The right leadership decision considers the long-term impact on people, trust, and organizational culture.

The strongest leaders rarely choose between business performance and people.

Lasting results come from decisions that achieve organizational objectives while strengthening the confidence, engagement, and commitment of the teams responsible for delivering them.

“The very best people will always step up to the role when they know you believe in them.”

Building Growth That Endures

Across industries and markets, Suzanne has found that the fundamentals of sustainable success remain remarkably consistent.

Organizations must create meaningful value for customers while building the capability to deliver that value consistently.

Technologies change.

Business models evolve.

Market conditions shift.

Yet strong people, disciplined execution, a clear sense of purpose, and the willingness to adapt before change becomes disruption remain essential.

Organizations that endure are those that stay close to their customers and continuously improve how they operate.

Sustainable growth also requires balancing immediate performance with long-term value creation.

Rather than chasing short-term gains, high-performing organizations invest continuously in innovation, talent, and customer relationships while maintaining strong operational foundations.

Suzanne demonstrated this approach at DISA Global Solutions, where she took a business entirely focused and operating in the United States and expanded it into one servicing clients in more than 100 countries in just twelve months.

Her work in private equity made her a natural leader of the M&A process, where she identified acquisition targets that would enable the rapid expansion of operations.

Her global expertise across multiple industries was a rare yet imperative foundation for scaling the business to both existing and new clients through globalized platforms, products and services, pricing, and international teams.

Suzanne created a five-year business plan that was delivered in only two years.

She drove revenue growth of 10% in a business where competitors had declined by 7% to 10% over the prior two years.

The result was an organization capable of responding quickly to market shifts without losing sight of its strategic vision.

For Suzanne, sustainable success comes from consistently aligning purpose, execution, and customer value over time.

Transformation Begins With People

Leading transformation has reinforced another important lesson: meaningful change rarely happens simply because the strategy is right.

It happens when leaders have the resilience to challenge assumptions, listen to resistance, and bring people with them.

Suzanne learned early that setbacks should be treated as feedback rather than failure.

That mindset helped her lead change with persistence, curiosity, and a deep respect for the people who ultimately make transformation possible.

She also learned a fundamental lesson in the first year of her career: outcomes that benefit the client, the company, and its people can be achieved at the same time.

When leaders become deeply aligned with their clients and their goals, they can build plans that address each objective. Mutual success then strengthens the partnership itself.

For Suzanne, some of the strongest partnerships she has built have emerged from exactly this principle.

The Foundation of Sustainable Growth

Customer Value
+
Exceptional People
+
Disciplined Execution
+
Purpose
+
Adaptability

Sustainable Growth

Culture Is What Leaders Consistently Model

Culture transformation is often discussed through communications, values statements, or isolated initiatives.

Suzanne sees it differently.

Culture is shaped every day by what leaders consistently model, reward, and hold people accountable for.

High-performing organizations emerge when culture, leadership behavior, operating systems, and incentives reinforce the same priorities.

The desired culture cannot simply be something people hear about.

It must become how the business actually works.

This principle connects directly to Suzanne’s approach to trust.

Lasting trust is built through consistency, transparency, and integrity, particularly when circumstances become difficult or priorities change.

Doing what you say you will do creates credibility.

But the strongest partnerships go beyond delivering results. They are grounded in genuine respect, candor, and a shared commitment to long-term value.

Many of Suzanne’s closest friends today are former clients. She smiles because she has as many friends outside of the United States as she does in Chicago, where she lives.

For Suzanne, those relationships are part of what makes global leadership meaningful.

The Balance Between Strategy and Execution

One of the most common challenges Suzanne sees in organizations is an imbalance between strategy and execution.

Leaders often invest heavily in developing strategy while underinvesting in the people, communication, and accountability required to execute it effectively.

A clear vision alone does not create alignment.

Employees must understand their role in delivering results.

Teams need continuous feedback.

Leaders must remain adaptable.

People need to be empowered to make decisions as conditions change.

The strongest organizations therefore treat execution not as the final step of strategic planning, but as an ongoing leadership discipline.

That distinction becomes increasingly important as businesses enter an era of continuous disruption.

Suzanne requires her teams to create annual business plans that align with customer goals. These plans are not an exercise in creating a document that sits in an email once delivered.

Rather, she requires her teams to review them on a monthly basis with clients to ensure alignment and maintain focus on the most critical business objectives, which naturally change as markets do.

Suzanne Rurode’s Leadership Principles

• Listen before leading.
• Ask better questions.
• Trust people before they are 100% ready.
• Put customers at the center.
• Treat setbacks as feedback.
• Adapt without losing purpose.
• Align people, execution, and strategy.
• Build trust through consistency and integrity.

Leading Through the Next Decade

As the world moves toward 2027 and beyond, Suzanne believes global business leadership will increasingly require the ability to combine technological innovation with empathy, agility, and purpose.

Customers will expect hyper-personalized, seamless experiences while demanding greater transparency, sustainability, and ethical business practices.

Organizations that embrace AI, data-driven decision-making, and continuous workforce upskilling will be best positioned to adapt to rapid change.

Yet technology alone will not determine who succeeds.

Long-term success will belong to companies that foster resilient, people-centered cultures while remaining agile enough to navigate constant disruption.

For Suzanne, this is where leadership becomes most important.

The challenge is not simply keeping pace with change. It is leading through continuous disruption without losing organizational focus while balancing rapid advances in AI and technology with shifting customer expectations, geopolitical uncertainty, and the human need for trust, purpose, and connection.

Journey as an Executive Woman

Suzanne’s journey as an executive woman has been similar to that of other women executives. Like them, she, too, is a mother, which means she also handles an entire “executive” set of responsibilities at home.

She is the one who buys crayons, notebooks, folders, colored pencils, uniforms, and other things at the start of each school year. She was a Room Parent on a rotating schedule for her three children for 16 years in a row.

She also schedules and attends back-to-school physicals and doctor appointments and buys the outfits for picture day at school.

Suzanne has no word of complaint.

“These tasks are not a burden, and I don’t waste time bemoaning what it is like to be the ‘Chief’ at the office and home,” she says. “Instead, I see these moments as precious time to spend with my children, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

The part of her career journey that sets her apart from other women executives is that she “lives” in different cultures every single day.

Her journey has taken her to more than 50 countries and to multiple cities in each of those countries.

“I would not trade this journey for an easier one, as it has made me a citizen of the world and has expanded my entire view of life and humanity in a way that I do not take for granted,” says Suzanne.

The Leader You Choose to Become

If every future global leader could spend one hour reflecting before taking on executive responsibility, Suzanne would encourage them to ask:

“What kind of leader do I want to be when the pressure is highest, and will the choices I make every day drive long-term success and profitability as well as build the trust, culture, and legacy I want to leave behind?”

It is a question that captures the essence of her leadership philosophy.

Leadership is not about setting the perfect example.

It is about creating the clarity, confidence, trust, and accountability that enable people to perform at their best. It is also about being nimble enough to deliver the financials every quarter.

And perhaps Suzanne’s most powerful lesson comes from her experience of becoming a global leader.

Get on an airplane.

Go somewhere you do not speak or understand the language.

Embrace the cultural lessons that emerge.

Some experiences cannot be learned from a book, a film, or someone else’s story. They must be experienced personally to truly understand the world.

That willingness to step beyond the familiar has shaped Suzanne’s career and her perspective on leadership.

In a business environment defined by constant transformation, her message remains grounded:

Listen before leading. Adapt without losing purpose. Trust people enough to let them grow. And build organizations where long-term success is created by people who believe in the future they are building together.

Quick Takes

One leadership habit that has most contributed to your success:

One leadership habit that has most contributed to my success is listening before leading, creating space to understand different perspectives, ask the right questions, and build alignment before moving to action. It has helped me make better decisions, build trust across cultures and functions, and bring people with me through periods of significant change.

One personal value that has been tested most throughout your career:

Resilience, staying grounded in my values and continuing to move forward when the path is uncertain, especially when leading through major change, setbacks, or unfamiliar environments.

One challenge global business leaders must prepare for in the next decade:

The ability to lead through continuous disruption without losing organizational focus, balancing rapid advances in AI and technology with shifting customer expectations, geopolitical uncertainty, and the human need for trust, purpose, and connection.

One mindset shift that completely changed how you approach leadership:

I shifted from seeing leadership as driving performance through setting the perfect example to seeing it as creating the clarity, confidence, trust, and accountability that enable people to perform at their best.

One book, influence, or experience every future leader should explore:

Getting on an airplane to a foreign country where you do not speak or understand the language, and embracing the myriad of cultural lessons you will learn in just a few days. It truly is one of the most magical and transformative experiences in life. You can’t read about it, watch it in a film, or listen to someone else’s stories; you must experience it yourself to truly know about the world.