Leading with Responsibility

Brooke Blake, VP, and Chief Sustainability Officer, FARO Technologies, Inc., has had the privilege of having a strong network of female colleagues and friends to help her throughout her career journey; hence it is her goal to seek out opportunities to pay it forward. Brooke loves her professional female (and male) relationships as a nurturer at heart. “When it comes to the corporate environment, it is vitally important that we be able to support each other when needed as well as have the courage to challenge each other when needed as both are truly important,” she elucidates.

Brooke joined FARO in 2017 as Chief Compliance Officer and Sr. Director of Internal Audit and, in 2021, was promoted to her current role. With 20 years of senior-level experience across multiple sectors, her background includes expertise in risk management, technical accounting analysis, process improvements, and corporate governance. Before FARO, Brooke served as vice president of internal audit at Everi, Inc., a global, publicly-traded company within the gaming industry. Previously, she held similar roles at Houldsworth Russo & Co., PC, BDO Seidman LLP Affiliate, Ronald McDonald House Charities, and Progressive Gaming Intl Corp. Brooke earned a BS in accounting from the University of Utah and maintains current certifications as a CPA and Certified Information Systems Auditor.

Brooke has been inspiring and empowering team members to become great leaders of tomorrow by sharing her experience. The pioneering leader firmly believes people are the greatest asset. She likes to invest a lot of time in relationship building with her staff and throughout the FARO organization. “For my team, I am committed to making the employment relationship a win/win scenario, encouraging growth and developing my team, particularly with potential successors,” she says. “I believe success is a mindset, and every career milestone should be celebrated. My advice is not to be in such a hurry to get to a certain title, salary, or status. Instead, people need to focus on learning as much as they can along the way. My advice is to principally ‘say yes to everything.”

Throughout her career, Brook has been open to all learning opportunities, allowing continual expansion of her skillset from auditing financial statements to IT Systems to multiple areas of regulatory compliance and now to sustainability. This immense experience has led to her learning many leadership lessons and life. “There are innate differences between men and women, both of which bring value to the corporate environment. The lesson that helped me the most was learning not to internalize challenges or take things personally,” she explains.

Brook elucidates, “People cannot be offended without your agreement. For me it has been valuable to maintain the perspective that feedback and/or challenges are positive no matter what. This either shows me things I need to work on, or it shows me the nature/character/personality/work style of others. In this way, I understand how to manage the relationship going forward.”

Armed with this mindset, Brook has been taking the company to new heights. Being appointed a Chief Sustainability Officer and tasked with building a program from scratch has been a great learning opportunity for Brook to understand more about the world’s view and the existing internal programs, many of which were not receiving credit for their good deeds until now. She has focused on right-sizing expectations to match the organization’s risk appetite, budget, and core values when implementing a program. “While we would all love to maximize our sustainable offerings, we need to be realistic in our capabilities in order to ensure a successful program,” says Brook.

“We recently issued our first-ever sustainability report, and I was thrilled to lead this initiative,” states Brook. This comprehensive 50-page report profiled FARO’s corporate social responsibility and ESG programs, such as reducing their carbon footprint globally and supporting social programs like STEM learning, particularly for minorities and females from low-income and disadvantaged areas. Moreover, this report outlined how FARO solutions already contribute to a sustainable future by pioneering numerous precision measurement and imaging tools along with cloud-based data-sharing platforms that enable customers to reduce rework, waste, and scrap while leveraging the advantages of digitalization and working virtually. “While I am proud of my achievements thus far, I remain focused on learning and growth opportunities, both personally and professionally,” says Brook. WL