Each week, we interview proven leaders from our network, to learn from their experiences, and share their Talent Attraction and Candidate Experience stories with you.

• Our mission is to promote the accomplishments of our guests
• Highlight the companies where they work and the services, and products that they offer
• Share success stories from their experiences and, most importantly
• Provide strategies for job seekers and advice to talent seeking to accelerate their careers.
  

Today’s guest is Jill Lukes, SVP of Operations at ReportAll USA. Jill’s career began as a software developer in the insurance industry before transitioning to project management and earning her MBA.  After gaining extensive experience in consulting and leading client services at SaaS company focused on genomic analysis for cancer therapies, Jill is now  the SVP of Operations at ReportAll.

Jill shared many great insights including:

• Importance of self-awareness through tools like Strengths Finder.
• Volunteering as a method for gaining experience, networking, and skill development.
• Emphasis on entering the workforce with a learning mindset.

Navigating Nonlinear Careers: Jill Lukes’ Path from Developer to SVP

[00:00:04] Ron Laneve: Hello and welcome to Episode 33 of the Bell Falls Search Focus on Talent podcast. I’m your host, Ron Laneve. Each week we share the career stories of tech experts and marketing mavens, operational gurus, and sales leaders to illustrate how they have navigated the nonlinear career path.

[00:00:24] Ron Laneve: Today’s guest began her career as a software developer in the insurance industry before we successfully recruited her to our growing consulting practice which was called Xteric Technology Group at the time. I’ve done thousands of interviews in my career, and the one with her I’ll never forget. I asked her specifically what she wanted to do with her career, and she looked me dead straight in the eyes and said, Ron, I’m going to be the CEO of a company someday.

[00:00:50] Ron Laneve: We hired her on the spot, and it’s been a great decision. We’ve been able to work with her multiple times, and actually helped her find her current role, which we’ll talk about in a second. But as you’ll find out in our chat, she’s well on her way down that path of running a business and being the CEO of a company.

[00:01:07] Ron Laneve: I’m very excited to introduce to you, Jill Lukes. SVP of operations at ReportAll. Jill thanks for being here.

[00:01:15] Jill Lukes: Great to be here Ron.

[00:01:16] Ron Laneve: So what did I miss in that brief introduction?

[00:01:18] Jill Lukes: It’s a pretty good story and I think that day really changed my life definitely set me on a trajectory of introspection and growth that I really didn’t anticipate at that time. I’m also a family woman. I have two children and a husband. Two dogs. I do a lot of volunteer work and I really think that is all part of the picture of who I am, what I bring to the table, and ultimately what has guided me and shaped me into the person that I am today.

[00:01:51] Ron Laneve: You definitely stay pretty busy and help a lot of people out. You give back. So that’s I appreciate that and always have. I’ve gotten a lot of energy out of all of volunteering and all the hard work that you do. 

[00:02:01] Ron Laneve: As we talked a lot about in the past, I like to focus on this concept of the non linear career path, and it can be different things. It could be individuals completely changing careers and going into different professions. It could be individuals staying along a common path, but changing companies and changing industries. I think your career is a good illustration of that. And I’d love to talk about that. So can you build upon the brief introduction I gave and, go from, those days as a programmer, I think it was at Bristol West and insurance and to where you’re at today, leading ReportAll.

[00:02:39] Ron Laneve: And then if you don’t mind diving into, what is ReportAll and what do you guys do and who do you, who are your clients? 

[00:02:45] Jill Lukes: Yeah, sure. I’ve always identified as Jill of all trades, master of none. And I think that really started as early on, as I can remember.

[00:02:55] Jill Lukes: I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I was in college. Played around with a couple of majors, but ultimately ended up in computer science, which I think was the right fit for me. Graduated college shortly after 911. So came into the economy very much like I think the economy that we’re in now where it was really tough.

[00:03:15] Jill Lukes: I had a newborn my daughter was born on spring break of my senior year of college. I was ready to work and very motivated and had a really hard time. I think it took about six months for me to find that role at Bristol West, but ultimately I feel like it was the perfect fit for me.

[00:03:33] Jill Lukes: I was a programmer analyst. This is 2002. I was working on point of sale software application development back when desktop applications were a thing. We actually within my first year of working on that team we were taking the desktop application and moving it to a web based application.

[00:03:51] Jill Lukes: I tell stories about how we had when you had a bug in your software and you had to issue a patch, we literally had to send floppy disks out to all of our agents, and that was a very expensive process. So I learned the overhead of defect management pretty early on in my career. Ultimately felt like I learned a lot from that role.

[00:04:14] Jill Lukes: I also realized retrospectively that I was put in a role where I was supporting a lot of different applications right off the bat. We were working on comparative rater software as well. If you’re not a captive agent, you might be working with multiple insurance companies to see who has the best rate.

[00:04:35] Jill Lukes: I was responsible for programs that would bridge that data from the rater application into our application. I got exposure early on to all of the different rating softwares that were out there in use, that weren’t even proprietary to the company that I was working in. I just felt at home. It was this thirst for knowledge that I didn’t even know that I had. I felt like I was being positioned for success because all I had to do was just turn my brain on and go to work.

[00:05:05] Jill Lukes: It was a really good start to my career. I learned pretty quickly though, that I was not cut out for development for the rest of my career. I would ask questions and kickoff meetings, like, why are we doing it this way? What’s the business model associated with this? It’s slightly different than the way that we did it in this other state. I don’t always think that line of questioning was appreciated and probably not appropriate for a kickoff meeting. I learned that quickly. But ultimately that was the sign that I needed to go back to school and pursue a MBA.

[00:05:39] Jill Lukes: I did that within a couple of years and ultimately, that’s when I found project management. That is really, I think, where everything picked up and took off. In grad school, I was really exposed to project management and earned my project management professional certification. I had never really done project management before, but I just knew this is what I needed to be doing. I wanted to continue to work in software but ultimately deliver value in ways that were more comprehensive to the entire life cycle.

[00:06:08] Jill Lukes: I’ve always been ambitious and moving into a role in consulting I think was the best possible thing that could have happened to me at that time. Because I was really ready to continue that, turning my brain on every day to solve a different challenge and learn a new software, learn a new different problem. Learn a new tool. I was definitely able to do that in a consulting environment. 

[00:06:30] Jill Lukes: I really felt like that first role that I had in consulting was also, very poignant and very relevant to the rest of my career. I was working with a customer locally in Cleveland area, who really had this motto of customer service equals resolution. At the time seemed really silly, but especially in a consulting environment, you learn pretty quickly that your customer is paying you, your client is paying you, and if they don’t see the value in what you bring to the table, that’s a problem.

[00:07:01] Jill Lukes: That role taught me a lot about the gigs that would follow for many years in consulting. I think it was about between 8 to 10 years in consulting where I was exposed to a lot of different challenges, saw a lot of growth individually within my own career and played a number of different roles that ultimately were needed by the agency at that time.

[00:07:25] Jill Lukes: That was also something that I learned while I was there. Identify the wave, jump on it and ride it as long as you possibly can. The consulting environment was very good for me. I learned a lot from it. I still really hold a lot of those lessons very close to myself and my identity and ultimately, you know leaving consulting was hard to do. But I did all of that consulting while I was a mother of young children too.

[00:07:56] Jill Lukes: So it was a pivotal time in my life where I had to learn about balance and I struggled with that. Still struggle with it a little bit, but I’ve learned quite a lot. Going from that consulting environment into a product company, at GenomOncology was a great step for me as well. Ultimately did some good work there, mostly on the account management side for several years. Had a really great exposure to some very sophisticated technology with really innovative and important work and had really a good experience, exploring aspects of technology that I didn’t even know were possible and are to this day still really making a profound difference in people’s lives.

[00:08:45] Jill Lukes: Ultimately at some point felt like I had grown to the extent that I could and was looking for another role and that’s when you and I had talked and you helped me find the right path for myself and that was to ReportAll At the time I think they were looking for Vice President of Operations.

[00:09:06] Jill Lukes: And that was a big jump for me. So similarly from moving from a development to a development role, to a consulting role, it was a pretty big jump for me to move from an account management role where I was purely focused on software to an operations role where I was more responsible for Financial operations sales and marketing and even product development as well.

[00:09:34] Jill Lukes: The role at ReportAll I think is going on about 5 years and that’s gone by pretty quickly. We’ve seen a lot of great growth and, it’s been a fun wave to surf as well. 

[00:09:46] Ron Laneve: I know the consulting experience probably played a big role in, in helping you make that jump. You think the jump was big, probably title wise. But functionally you applied all the things you already knew from financial management to client management, to people management, to then, combining the GenomOncology, the product development experience side of things.

[00:10:09] Ron Laneve: You were ready for it and it was the right time, right place. I didn’t do much except for happen to be representing that role at the right time when you were ready. And here we go. I just made the match. Five years later, I think it’s been been a great win for everybody.

[00:10:23] Ron Laneve: So could you let’s roll into ReportAll if you don’t mind and tell me, what is ReportAll and a little bit about the history and your core offerings. 

[00:10:31] Jill Lukes: Report all is a provider of property parcel data. We have international data. We primarily deliver data within the United States as well.

[00:10:41] Jill Lukes: So we have over 157 million parcels and parcel data typically is what’s called the polygon or the parcel boundaries, as well as attributes like owner name, acreage, school district, land use, etc. I would have never really known this until I started working at ReportAll, but there is profound application for the use of this data amongst GIS professionals.

[00:11:04] Jill Lukes: It’s industry agnostic. Right now, some of our biggest customers are using our parcel data to identify where is the best location to put a solar farm. They’re looking for a parcel of certain acreage zoned a certain way, maybe perhaps in a certain zip code that aligns closely to the grid.

[00:11:24] Jill Lukes: So they’re using our tools to be able to find the right parcel. Then, of course, get the information about who owns that so they can reach out. Insurance companies might use our building footprint data to better understand relative to the floodplain, where is the building positioned on the parcel and inherently what’s the risk associated with ensuring that building based on that type of information.

[00:11:52] Jill Lukes: A lot of different applications of the data and the data itself is the product. But we have learned that across various industries they want the data in a number of different formats. We offer enterprise solutions and more technical solutions like an API. So if you want to build your own application using our data, you can do that.

[00:12:14] Jill Lukes: Parcel boundaries are of course, very important, more so than you’d realize in a number of industries like pest control, for example. Where it is extremely important to make sure that when you’re spraying a property you do not go on to the the adjacent property. Also we have a mobile application called LandGlide.

[00:12:34] Jill Lukes: That is definitely what keeps me the most busy and our team’s the most busy it’s been quite successful. It provides access both in the field and in the office to real estate professionals or anyone else who might be looking to better understand property information associated with real property. 

[00:12:54] Ron Laneve: I start to panic every year when my when my subscription starts to run out because Langlide probably one of my highest used apps on my phone. I’m not even in the real estate profession but you know to getting information about certain properties and the detail that comes with it has been pretty cool. So it’s it’s been fun to watch. 

[00:13:13] Ron Laneve: I would say started out primarily as a custom data provider of this parcel information still doing that, and then now into also offering this app for not only consumers, but businesses, et cetera. 

[00:13:31] Jill Lukes: Yeah, exactly. And I think it is really important to realize too that it is all the same data. We do see a growing number of customers who are familiar with LandGlide either personally or at an enterprise level who have another team and they’re on another side of the business that is looking to develop properties and ultimately uses our API or ReportAll online to do custom queries on a web based tool and export those files and use those in their own environment.

[00:14:01] Jill Lukes: We’re definitely seeing a lot of application of the data across a number of ways. Since I came to ReportAll, I think the goal was really to build a structure that allows us to scale across the various product lines. I was employee number 13. We just hired employee number 30. We’ve grown quite a bit in that five years or so.

[00:14:24] Jill Lukes: A lot of that is because of continued support that’s needed of this application LandGlide, but also the other parts of the business as well that on an enterprise level or even an individual level deliver the same parcel data in different formats to our customers. 

[00:14:39] Ron Laneve: So let’s transition into a couple of the different cohorts that I like to talk about. Let’s start with the, the college student, or, the soon to enter the workforce individual. Like you mentioned, you’ve raised a couple children that are now, ones just recently left college pursuing graduate degree and you have another one coming soon entering the college world. You and I have personally interviewed a lot of college students over the years. I know you’ve been excellent and also. Growing, entry level talent into successful professionals in your image very well.

[00:15:19] Ron Laneve: From all your experiences, what advice would you give that cohort, the college student around, What they should focus on in school, before they get out what the new hot kind of areas are for professionally. Sometimes we all, we all know that there’s roles out there that exist that you don’t even know about in college. Pick any 1 of those, or even your own kind of thread. How would you advise?

[00:15:41] Jill Lukes: Yeah, this is very relevant. I’m having very similar conversations with my daughter right now. Who’s entering, looking to enter the workforce and it is a tough market out there too. So I think recent graduates are met with some unique challenges that they might not have seen a year, just a year ago.

[00:15:58] Jill Lukes: But I think if I could give the most relevant advice that I’ve learned is really to know thyself. There’s a book that’s sitting on my bookshelf behind me called Strengths Finder. I think it’s Strengths Finder 2.0. It was a great exercise that I took fairly early in my career Where I learned to understand my strengths and these are more personality than learned behaviors. It really helped me understand what I bring to the table in terms of value for my teams. In reality, most of the work that we do is a collaborative effort.

[00:16:36] Jill Lukes: You have to acknowledge that especially as a entry level or somebody just starting into the workforce you’re going to be learning more than you’re going to be doing. If you can really understand what you do extraordinarily well or what you bring to the table that others might struggle with or others might not think about.

[00:16:56] Jill Lukes: I think that’s a good way to represent yourself in the interview process. I’ve been 2002 where I desperately wanted to work. There were a couple of jobs that I really wanted that ultimately didn’t come my way but I still think I ended up in the right position overall. Even though I hadn’t discovered that book at that time I do feel like i’ve always represented myself and truly in the interview process and really every day and I think that’s also really important as well.

[00:17:27] Jill Lukes: It’s important to be malleable and open minded But also to feel comfortable asserting yourself and who you are because ultimately you’re looking for something that is the right fit. I think one of the best things that you can do for yourself and your perspective employer is really know yourself, really know your strengths and ultimately represent those well in the interview process and you’ll find the right path.

[00:17:52] Ron Laneve: Any advice on how you get to know yourself. Obviously, books are one way. I’ve had a lot of books that a lot of guests refer, books that they’ve used. I think you touched on a really key point, which is approaching your, at least your, probably all jobs in your career, because I don’t think we ever stop learning, but your initial jobs is you’re going there to learn.

[00:18:14] Ron Laneve: You’re going there to learn how to learn and learn how to how to be successful, not just do. That’s a tough concept. Sometime, to know what you want to do. I don’t know about you, but I’m 50 and I’m still trying to figure out what I’m trying to do every day.

[00:18:28] Jill Lukes: Yeah, so some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten was to actually do some volunteer work. It didn’t come until later in my career, but I sit on three boards right now where I’m In some cases working with very early young professionals who are just starting their careers. They’ve found something of interest and they have something to bring to the table and I will say some of the boards I sit on are in the theater and non profit sector. Honestly, if you can sell tickets or concessions There’s often a space on some board for you.

[00:19:08] Jill Lukes: Finding an area of passion and allowing yourself some additional time to allocate to those organizations is a great way of making some connections that you might not have had otherwise and also Continuing to learn in a completely different context from a business environment. 

[00:19:29] Jill Lukes: I should be very clear. This is always non paid opportunities. However networking of course is extremely important in a lot of different ways, but specifically working with other board members there has been paramount to my own development as well that, Has given me relationships that I might not have had otherwise, and also friendships that have really come out of selling concessions or selling tickets to somebody, something that you wouldn’t necessarily think is going to have a profound impact on you.

[00:20:04] Jill Lukes: If you’re doing something that you care about It provides valuable experience, but then it also gives you opportunities to explore aspects of your own capabilities that you might not have had otherwise. For example, I am running the P&L for ReportAll now. But that wasn’t the first P&L that I actually had experience working with.

[00:20:24] Jill Lukes: So I had I’ve been a treasurer for the Mad Factory, which is a non profit theater organization in Lorain County. I’ve been managing their P&L and that is a much harder job. Because you’re literally looking for every nickel every penny and trying to Identify creative solutions to help bridge the gap and especially during COVID.

[00:20:45] Jill Lukes: I learned some great experiences from participating in that board that I might not have had otherwise. So even just being somebody in the room, even if you can’t have an officer position because you’re early on in your career, I think there’s still a lot of learning that could happen from just participating on a nonprofit board. That’s maybe one area where I would look to explore. 

[00:21:08] Ron Laneve: I would also say, running a baseball league in a city and dealing with parents and multiple ages of children playing softball and baseball, probably one of the hardest things you’ve done too as well. Probably learned a lot from learned a lot of skills from that exercise as well. Thanks for talking about it. 

[00:21:26] Jill Lukes: Absolutely. I started coaching my son’s tee ball team. And within a few years, I was the president of a nonprofit organization that provided recreation baseball activities to my community. Then of course that parlayed into a broader role where I was responsible for maintaining the infrastructure, which networked me with the school district and the city and the township. That was another great way of really in the place that I live, really learning about experiences and people and my community in ways that I hadn’t otherwise.

[00:22:02] Jill Lukes: One example is we had to deal with an umpire shortage. Umpire shortages are plaguing youth sports across the country, and until you have to come up with creative solutions for things that You know, it might be completely non related to your job, your day to day, your nine to five. It does really exercise parts of your brain that are really relevant more, in more ways than you might think. 

[00:22:27] Speaker: Great example. Let’s transition into the more experienced talent group. You’ve interviewed a lot of people over the years. From your own experiences interviewing and looking for work as well as, evaluating candidates or evaluating talent, joining the companies that you’ve been in. What have you seen that’s been differentiating for individuals? I keep talking about, as you mentioned, we’re in this economy right now that’s changed dramatically than it was 12 months ago, where the candidate was in control and dictated how things were rolling for a couple of years. Now it’s completely flipped and supply and demand is completely changed. I’m talking to an enormous amount of experienced talent every week that’s struggling and is asking themselves what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get an interview? Why can’t I get this job? Any advice for that group? Especially in the time we’re in right now. 

[00:23:18] Jill Lukes: Realize too I’m coming from a place of working in technology, but I really think it’s very important to embrace change and embrace disruptive technology right now. It is not enough to just have this incredible arsenal of experiences and tools that you can bring to the table, even relationships. You have to understand and navigate this disruptive technology that really is adding value to the software ecosystem, but ultimately can be tricky to keep keep tabs on. I will say that all of the young professionals coming out of college or early on in their career They get it. They’re riding that wave they’re utilizing that technology and it took me a while to also really figure out to allocate some time to figure out how am I going to incorporate ChatGPT into my daily life, which now that I have, I’m so grateful for that technology, but it’s definitely not something that even just a year ago, I would have considered within my wheelhouse. Ultimately I say this because being efficient is no longer just about working the most effective 40 hours in the day. It’s about utilizing all of the resources at your disposal to bring the most impact during that time.

[00:24:42] Ron Laneve: On that note, are you using ai in any way? You know personally or professionally and i’m not asking to give away Any trade secrets with the business? So even personally, how are you using it? Or do you have any tools that you’re open to sharing? 

[00:24:55] Jill Lukes: Yeah, ChatGPT is definitely one that I use with some regularity at least on a weekly basis. A lot of this isn’t even in my professional life but sometimes you know on the content development side related to promoting an upcoming performance or something like that. I’ve found some sophisticated ways of analyzing financial reports in ChatGPT. I feel like I have a pretty good way of looking at the forest through the trees, but ultimately by utilizing technology such as ChatGPT it provides me with things that I might not have seen otherwise.

[00:25:30] Jill Lukes: I think there’s also, there are competitors in the parcel data space that are using blockchain or AI to also have more relevant user generated or user tailored content. That is definitely something that I think is going to be paramount in our industry at ReportAll. But ultimately, I think it’s really important advice for everyone on the north side of their career to really embrace and start to become familiar with.

[00:25:58] Ron Laneve: There any any upcoming roles or talent you’re looking for to join ReportAll that you’d want to mention?

[00:26:05] Jill Lukes: Yeah, I do anticipate we’ll have a role on my team at some point within the next quarter looking for someone with financial operations probably somebody who can, be another Jill of all trades and to your point Ron I really have enjoyed developing talent at throughout various stages in my career, even at very early stages, relatively of my career as well. So we are likely going to be looking for someone early on in their career that is willing to bring some fresh ideas to the table and really help us carry the business into the future.

[00:26:44] Ron Laneve: Very cool. Jill, it’s been fun to watch your career develop. I’ll never forget that interview out of all the interviews I’ve ever done. We, you and I’ve talked and joked about it a lot. I appreciate everything you’ve done. I appreciate all the help you’ve given your communities and the way you’ve distributed your time in a very selfless way.

[00:27:03] Ron Laneve: You’re definitely somebody I look up to and appreciate very much. Thank you for your time and appreciate you sharing.

May 2, 2024