Equipment finance industry leader Dave Walton, president and CEO of Caterpillar Financial Services, will lead a Master Talk on Leadership and the Transformative Power of Customer Experience for STRIPES Leadership Program, the professional and personal leadership development program designed to challenge and inspire best-in-class leaders within the equipment finance industry in partnership with Monitor.

This Master Talk will examine the business imperative of listening to customer needs, adapting to those needs and anticipating those needs. Great customer experiences create loyalty and, ultimately, growth. Leaders must consistently maintain an external accountability to the customer and a continuous improvement mindset while avoiding the pitfalls of becoming too inwardly focused within their own organizations.

“We all want to build, maintain and protect loyal customers, but it can truly be transformative when it becomes central to company culture. That doesn’t just happen and it doesn’t last … without intentional leadership,” Walton said.

STRIPES Leadership Program is a 10-month, rich and unique leadership development experience. With a mixture of assessments, Master Talks are just one component of the comprehensive program tapestry, which includes Master Workshops, mentor modules, breakthrough discussions and leadership development plans. Launching in September 2021, the program will cultivate a transformative journey to leadership advancement. The curriculum is designed to present opportunities for participants to expand both personally and professionally to enhance their leadership potential.

“Without shared value and focus on the customer experience, companies simply won’t be able to compete,” Lisa Rafter, CEO and founder of STRIPES Leadership Program, said. “In Dave’s Master Talk, participants will learn how to be nimble enough to navigate internal organizational pressures while always maximizing and improving their customer experience.”

Walton is a vice president of Caterpillar and president and CEO of Caterpillar Financial Services. He has administrative responsibility for the financial products division, which is comprised of Cat Financial and Cat Financial Insurance Services.

Walton joined Cat Financial in 1989 after four years with an Illinois bank. During his first 10 years with the company, he held various credit, portfolio management and sales positions in the United States. He became corporate portfolio manager in 1999 and was responsible for managing the corporate finance portfolio through policy, reporting and analysis. In 2001, he was named U.S. southern region manager in Dallas and was responsible for field operations from Texas to Florida. In 2003, Walton served as managing director of northern Europe. Based in the UK, he was responsible for Cat Financial’s operations in the UK, Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.

From 2005 to 2011, Walton was a Cat Financial vice president based in Singapore with administrative responsibility for Cat Financial’s nine Asia-Pacific offices, including those in Singapore, Japan, China and Australia. In 2006, he was also asked to form and lead Cat Financial’s global mining finance organization, Cat Mining Finance, which has equipment and project finance offices in Zurich, Switzerland; Melbourne, Australia; and Nashville, TN. From 2012 to 2017, he was based in Peoria, IL, with responsibility for U.S. sales, Canada sales and operations, corporate accounts and the Cat Financial commercial account product while retaining his previous mining responsibilities.