Dawn Lepore
Executive vice president and CIO, Charles Schwab & Company, Inc.
Network World, 12/29/97
![[Lepore pic]](/gif/1229lepore.gif)
Think those online stock trading services are threatening the big guns of
the brokerage world? Don't try telling it to Dawn Lepore who, as CIO and a
member of Schwab's Management Committee, has led the discount brokerage's
aggressive foray into electronic trading. The e.Schwab Web service has won
over more than a million customers and has gained more than $73 billion in
customer assets. The service has garnered accolades for its design and
usability.
Then again, speed and innovation are nothing new to Lepore, who has won plenty of accolades herself.
Gartner Group handed her its Excellence in Technology Award, and she was named one of the Bay Area's Most Powerful Corporate Women in 1995 by the San Francisco Chronicle. That was a good year for Lepore: she made Network World's list of the 25 Most Powerful People in Networking for the first time.
Prior to striding into the world of electronic trading, Lepore led major reorganizations of Schwab's computing platforms and its IS department as well, all in an effort to make the company more responsive to change. Lepore has pushed to make information more accessible - and better organized - for customer service representatives. She's also pushed the boundaries by using voice response technology to automate trading.
Lepore has been quoted as saying that Schwab uses technology opportunistically, "to help us get out in the market first." The new opportunity is the Web, and thanks to Lepore, Schwab once again has staked an early claim.
