CarriePom.

Dawn Lapore, CIO Charles Schwab

by Peg Townsend

It was late in 1995 when a group of techies at Charles Schwab brokerage company messaged Chief Information Officer Dawn Lepore about a new project they were developing.

"It was a semi-obscure technology but they were very excited about it," remembers Lepore, sitting in her spacious office in Schwab's San Francisco headquarters. "They wanted me to take a look at it."

So Lepore agreed to come over to the lab and see what they had developed - a software that would allow different computer systems at Schwab to talk to one another.

The engineers knew that although Lepore was tech savvy, she wasn't a bits and bytes kind of person. So they put together a practical demonstration to show what their new software could do.

It turned out, the application the engineers picked was simple Web-based stock trade.

Lepore remembers the day perfectly. How she walked into the lab. How the engineers excitedly began to explain their program.

"They were talking about this wonderful behind-the-scenes technology and all I can think about was, 'holy cow, we can place trades on the Internet,'" Lepore says.

"It was like, 'oh my gosh.'"

Lepore immediately called in her boss, Charles Schwab, and the company soon launched an independent team to work on assembling an online trading service.

Working in secrecy at first, the team grew into a separate electronic-brokerage unit. It was a wild, intense, freewheeling time.

By 1996, e.Schwab was launched without a lot of fanfare. Within two weeks, e.Schwab had 25,000 web accounts, its goal for the whole year. By the end of 1997, online assets had grown 94 percent.

It wasn't a simple launch. There were hard decisions to be made and some employees who needed to be reassured. But that day in the lab literally transformed the no-frills discount brokerage into a powerful company on the cutting edge of business.

It also launched Lepore into the forefront of the world of business, where, in 1999, she made her first appearance on Fortune magazine's list of the 50 most powerful women in American business.

"Opportunities are always presenting themselves," Lepore says. "You have to take advantage of them." It all comes down to watching other successful people, believing in yourself, paying attention to the future and not being afraid to take risks.

Born in San Francisco, but raised on the East Coast, Lepore grew up in a household where her mother ran the home and her engineer father worked all hours of the day and night.

"If you had asked me in my early college years if I would have wanted to go into business and work as hard as I do, I think I would have said, 'absolutely not,'" Lepore says. She had seen what an absent, workaholic parent could do to a family.

"But my mother was a great role model and she taught me a lot about resilience," says Lepore, whose mother only lives minutes away from her daughter now. "She was great at establishing a center for our lives and taking everything in stride."

They were lessons Lepore would carry with her.

Graduating from college with a degree in music, Lepore went job hunting. but a lot of firms obviously didn't see the potential inside of the tall, blond woman.

She was turned down by all kinds of companies, including Proctor and Gamble and a Cincinnati department store.

"People with a music background were not necessarily in high demand," Lepore says with a laugh. So when she saw a newspaper ad that said Cincinnati Bell was looking for people with a music and math background, she decided to apply.

A company test showed she had an aptitude for computer programming and Lepore soon found herself sitting in a class with a bunch of burly former telephone linemen learning about computers.

"I was taking a chance," Lepore says, "but when you need a job to pay the rent, what do you have to loose?"

She stayed with Cincinnati Bell for four years, but eventually came back to the San Francisco Bay Area and began looking for a new company.

"I wanted a high-growth company where technology was very strategic," Lepore says. "I also wanted a company that was gender-blind."

She chose Charles Schwab.

It turned out to be the right decision for the young woman who had been the perfect student in high school, skipping the prerequisite rebellious phase for honors classes and good grades.

There were plenty of opportunities for Lepore to shine at the brokerage.

One of the keys, Lepore says, was finding out where the company was headed and being part of that journey.

Lepore remembers how, in the early days of the company's new technology initiative, there was a lot of hand-wringing and resistance to changes that were being proposed.

"In spite of myself, I found myself being caught up in it," Lepore remembers. "Then I remember waking up one day and thinking, this is going to be part of the company's future and if I'm not part of it, then I'm not part of the company's future."

She realized, she either had to support the new direction or leave.

She stayed and prospered. Her work not only gave her financial rewards but earned her the job of vice chairman.

But, Lepore likes to tell people, there wasn't anything magic about her success. It was a matter of seeing opportunities and seizing them.

Relaxed and sitting behind a big table in her office, Lepore says anyone can do it.

"Be a voracious learner - especially from those around you," says Lepore, who counts Dave Pottruck and Mark Barmann as her mentors at Schwab.

Read company newsletters, she says, pay attention to what the company is talking about in the press, then set yourself on the same path as your firm.

"You always want to be part of the future," she says.

Marching out of step with your company will take you nowhere.

The self-effacing Lepore, who likes to credit her success to the people around her, remembers her promotion to chief information officer in 1993.

"It was a hard time. I tried to do everything myself," she says. "I felt like I needed to show that I deserved the promotion by working longer and harder than anyone else."

But just working hard isn't always the answer.

Lepore remembers back to the time when her team wasn't in place and how she felt like she failed to communicate her direction clearly to her staff.

With everyone in the company watching, she had to reinvent herself as a leader.

"It was quite a painful process," Lepore says.

But it taught Lepore another valuable lesson: failures, while they aren't fun, are important.

"You hold your head high, tell people what you are doing to fix it and demonstrate that you learned from your failure," Lepore says.

It's a strategy she asks of herself, and of those she leads.

"I believe I have to earn my success and take complete accountability for my failures as well as my successes," she says. "Frequently, I hear technology executives complain about not being part of the decision-making. They lament the fact they don't have a 'seat at the table.'

"I think you constantly have to ask yourself what you have done to earn a seat at the table."

Earning a seat at the table meant Lepore was used to taking risks.

But nothing prepared her for the risk she took when she was 44.

Lepore gave birth to her first child, a son she named, Andrew.

"My husband and I had been married for 14 years," Lepore says. "We had a great marriage and we wanted a child."

But for the woman who valued control over her life, the decision was like driving at night with the headlights off.

There was no way to see what the future would bring.

Lepore worried that others would see her decision as a lack of seriousness about her career. Or, that she would end up in bed for months because of the problems that could come with having a baby so late in life.

"A management coach told me that the day you decide to have a child is to embark on a journey of vulnerability," says Lepore, whose office is filled with photos of her young son.

"It is so true."

Her initial worries were unfounded, but having a child did make big changes in her life.

Her husband retired from his programming job at Visa and is now a stay-at-home dad and Lepore made a decision not to work any more 80-hour weeks.

While she still puts in long hours - 55-hour weeks is usually her minimum - Lepore turns down "extras" like board memberships on the East Coast that may take away time from her family.

And, she says, with a laugh, instead of spending her free time collecting modern art or exercising, she spends it watching "Tommy the Tank" videos and taking long, slow walks around the block with her son.

But the most unexpected side effect of motherhood was that people began to tell her that she had become a better manager and leader because of it.

"It gives you a certain vulnerability, or approachability, when you are a parent," Lepore says.

People often strike up conversations with her now by first asking about her son, then launching into a new idea or a project they are developing. It makes them feel less intimidated. It gives her greater access to her employees.

"It's a benefit I hadn't anticipated," she says.

Dressed in one of the smart pantsuits she favors, Lepore is the image of success. There is expensive art on the walls, a million-dollar view, a air of power.

But, Lepore says, you can't become too wrapped up in the trappings that come with success.

"I like the perks, but I'm careful not to get so used to them that I try to protect them and not take the big risks that I need to do," Lepore says.

"It's important...to remind yourself that success can be fleeting and you have to earn it every day.

"You can't take success for granted, because then, some day, you will lose it."

A FEW MORE MINUTES WITH DAWN LEPORE

If you could have dinner with two people living or dead, who would they be?

LEPORE: It's hard to pick two. I would love to have dinner with Madeline Albright and Eleanor Roosevelt.

What is your favorite quote?

LEPORE: I'm not good at quotes. My favorite one is something about judging people by the way they treat others who can do nothing for them.

If you were choosing a different profession, what would it be?

LEPORE: I have always wished I was talented enough to be a professional musician.

What is your definition of success?

LEPORE: I have a 2-year-old son and I want him to be proud of who I am and what I have accomplished. I think of success as family, friends and a job where I can really make a difference; pushing myself to do more than I thought I could.

Peg Townsend is an award winning writer for Central Newspapers.