Social media handle(s): LinkedIn & @suneetaspeaks (Instagram)
A few words about me:
My family came to England in the early 1960's, settling in West London and trying to find a place in society as immigrants. I'm in awe of my parents, grandparents, and all my family who came to a new country, leaving everything they knew behind, in the hopes of potentially providing a better life to their children and extended families.
As a second generation Indian born in England, most things were a first in terms of experience. I'm very proud of my amazing parents, who have worked tirelessly their whole lives, never negative and always looking at how their children, extended family and community could have a better life through education and hard work, and be presented with opportunities that were never a viable option for them.
I am a Founder of my own Consultancy, specialising in large-scale program/project management. My background is over thirty years work experience, including ten years in operational management and leadership, running and setting up global contact centres and shared service centres. Then going on to work for a Systems Integrator for five years, where I honed my CX, CRM, IVR, ACD (yep lots of acronyms) skills and became an accredited Avaya and Aspect engineer in telephony, but also dabbled with Cisco, Genesys, Siemens, Mitel, Alcatel, NICE, Peoplesoft, SAP and Oracle technologies.
From there I moved onto management consulting with Deloitte for almost seven years and having a myriad of other roles, including Amdocs, Vodafone and some exciting Program Director roles for American Express, IHG, UK Police forces, First Group, Daily Mail Group Trust and Indeed to name a few. This was all before landing at Collaborative Solutions (acquired by Cognizant), where I was for circa three years, and eventually headed up their EMEA Workday Delivery Practice as Vice President. My current role is as Program Lead for a Global Pharma company for their Workday Deployment, across 60 countries and enhancing the working lives of circa 40,000 plus employees through the implementation.
Are there any professional experiences you've had that are quite unexpected compared to what you do nowadays?
I've come through a long career mainly focussed on leadership and technology, where I was often the only woman in the room, and definitely the only ethnic minority. The funny thing is that you never notice this, until you start to get treated differently. I remember one client workshop that I was attending, and by this juncture in my career I had over 13-14 years experience, and was being brought in as the Telephony expert, accredited in a few areas and also had run contact and call centres for a decade at this point too.
As everyone proceeded to sit down, and before I could sit down or introductions were made, one of the client team asked me for a coffee with milk and sugar. Before others could join him, our Sales Director introduced me as the Senior Technical Consultant brought in to resolve the architecture issues that the client was having. Everyone laughed it off, but it stayed with me. I was the only woman in the room, and so at least one of the men had assumed that I was present to serve the tea and coffee.
I believe the industry has changed and continues to change, but still not fast enough. We talk about having a diverse workforce and the many benefits that this brings, but do little to change the mindsets at an earlier age. I'm hopeful that by the time my children enter the workforce, it won't matter what gender they are, that they will be seen for their skills, expertise and the energy they bring.
Is your background more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) or non-STEM related?
My background is not in STEM at all. I accidentally enrolled on the Foundation year of an Industrial Engineering Degree, but that's another story for another time. My background is in customer experience work wise, a lot of system agnostic management consultancy professionally, and academically it is in Public Policy and Management. So very different from the Technology and leadership roles I have held for over 30 years in my career now.
Where did your professional journey start?
When I speak about my professional journey, it began with my first call centre job where I was working on the phones and taking customer service calls, that was 34 years ago now. Before that, I worked in a Saturday market in West London with my uncle, and would help run a children's clothes stall. This gave me a real insight into service and negotiation, I was eight years old and absolutely loved it. And I had a few other roles too, mostly catering and retail, at Heathrow Airport, Pizza Hut, Gateway Supermarkets, my humble student job beginnings, which gave me a great foundation and also meant I worked my way up through different roles and organisations.
How did you get into tech and what motivated you?
I got into technology by accident really. When I was running call centres, I would notice flaws in the ways that the CRM systems were set-up, or that the IVR journey for the customer was really confusing. I would take the time to understand the customer journey, by walking through it and experiencing it, so that I could ensure that my teams had the right training and were aware of the negative aspects of the customer journey. I would then translate these issues into solutions for the Technology teams, and ended up consulting across ACD, IVR, CRM, workforce management, management information and custom reporting.
My motivation has always been, and continues to be 'improving the experience' whether that's for the end customer or if it's for the team member, the employee. My focus has been on delivering value and in the process, save money, improve efficiencies and make the workplace a better place for an employee, regardless of where you sit in the hierarchy, and to make dealing with companies easier and more positive for customers. Putting people at the centre of everything I do, and trying to make positive changes and impacts, whilst having a lot of laughs and fun on the journey.
Have you experienced any 'career in tech' challenges / stereotypes?
One of the biggest challenges I've faced and continue to face in Technology, is this completely ludicrous idea that a specific gender is better at Technology. Actually, there is no difference between either gender, no one gender is better at Technology. It depends on the individual and the experience, education and ability, aptitude and talent that an individual has.
"Be curious, be bold and even if you don't know where to start, start connecting with people you admire in technology and ask their advice."
What you wish you knew before getting started in tech...
I wish I had known this was a viable career for me, and was not something that I fell into. There were no technology role models that I looked to growing up, now I'm glad to see there are so many more.
What has been your biggest 'wow!' moment related to working in tech so far?
There are so many wow moments related to working in technology, especially now with all the innovation around AI and where that is heading. There are also the obvious ones when you achieve a deadline, or a big technology program/project goes successfully, but the biggest ones for me, is when you help someone in your team achieve something they never saw themselves. Supporting and mentoring smart people, and then seeing them solve a technology issue, or get promoted to a more senior technical role, which they never thought they would achieve are always the biggest wow moments.
What do you like / not like about working in tech?
I love how much it changes, and that it is always developing. It is always new and exciting and very broad, the application of technology is so far spread that it opens up your thinking, imagination, creative talents and opportunities.
I don't like that we still have to address the imbalance in diversity in technology and also the lack of visibility and opportunity that still exist today.
"I wish I had known this was a viable career for me, and was not something that I fell into. There were no technology role models that I looked to growing up, now I'm glad to see there are so many more."
What's been your favourite / most memorable / funniest 'career in tech' moment so far?
Funniest moment is when I was working for a systems integrator and ended up being the voice of many call and contact centres, my voice was the IVR you heard across many different companies when you called them. And my family and friends would say I've been thinking of you today, but in most cases they had called a call centre and heard my voice instructing them to Press 1 for ... and so forth, and then called me in the evening, because all of a sudden they had been thinking about me!
And to wrap up, is there any advice you'd like to give to others interested in a career in tech?
Be curious, be bold and even if you don't know where to start, start connecting with people you admire in technology and ask their advice.
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