Featured Pride Month 2021 profile
Featured Pride Month 2021 profile
June 2021
Rachel Beckstrom
Lead Manager, Service Delivery General Management
Pittsburgh, PA
Rachel currently leads Communications and Engagement (C&E) efforts for BNY Mellon’s Operations for Payments, Treasury, Issuer Services and Markets (OPTISM). As the C&E Lead, Rachel’s focus is on developing strategic messages and enhancing the people experience. Prior to this role, Rachel was a member of the Technology Services Group (TSG) C&E team, where she communicated end-user technology updates and helped drive engagement between BNY Mellon senior leaders and employees.
BNY Mellon has a long and interesting history, and having worked with the company for 13 years, I’ve personally seen many transformations in the way we work. The changes in the past few years have been especially exciting — a switch to agile culture, streamlining processes through automation and advanced technology solutions, and an increased focus on people experience and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Our leadership provides opportunities for our voices to be heard, and I’ve really enjoyed working for BNY Mellon. I’m excited to see where our current leadership will take us.
Pride Month, while focused on our LGBT+ communities, serves as an important reminder for each of us to be our authentic self. Everyone has talents, skills and perspectives to share, and if you’re hiding a piece of yourself, the world is missing out on all you have to offer. I view Pride Month as an opportunity to learn how I can better use my voice and actions to support and encourage those who identify as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, asexual or pansexual. I share my pronouns in my email signature as a small gesture of respect and support, which opened up numerous opportunities to talk with colleagues about challenges facing the LGBT+ community. Pride is a time to celebrate all that the LGBT+ community has overcome and recognize how far we still need to go. We have to keep learning, reflecting and adding new tools to our toolbox. That’s what being an ally is all about.
I live by the behavior ‘we get it done’ — I act with urgency, completing high-quality work on time and collaborating with the right people to ensure successful outcomes. I believe that there is always room for improvement and that we should always strive for better results. Our clients and our teams depend on everyone bringing their ‘A’ game.
Learn more about Diversity & Inclusion.