 Hello everyone, welcome to theCUBE's presentation of Women in Tech Global Event Celebrating International Women's Day. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We've got a great guest in CUBE alumni, Tanuja Randery, vice president, commercial sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa, EMEA at AWS, Amazon Web Service. Tanuja, great to see you. Thank you for coming in all the way across the pond and the US to Palo Alto from London. Thank you John, great to see you again. I'm super excited to be part of this particularly special event. Well, this is a celebration around International Women's Day and it's going to continue throughout the rest of the year and every day is International Women's Day, but you're actually international, you're a woman in tech, you have a great career, we talk that re-invent. Let's step back and walk through your career highlights to date. What have been some of the key things in your career history that you can share? Oh, thanks John. It's always nice to reflect on this, you know. Look, the way I would classify my career, first of all, it's been very international. I was born and raised in India. I went to study in the US. It was always a dream to go do that. I did my masters in Boston University. I then worked in the US for a good 17 years across a number of tech companies in particular, started my career at McKinsey in the very early days and then moved on to work for EMC. You'll probably remember them John very well, of course they're now Dell. And then I moved over to Europe. So I've spent the last 18 years here in Europe and that's been across a couple of different things. I always classify half my career as been strategy, transformation, consulting, and the other half of my career is doing the real job of actually running operations. And I've been, you know, 12, 15 years in the tech and telecom sector had the excitement of running Schneider Electric's business in the UK. Dunniston in private equity, went back to McKinsey, boomerang, and then AWS called me and how could I possibly refuse that? So it's been really exciting. I think the one big takeaway when I reflect on my career is I've always had this North Star about leading a business someday. And then I sort of threw my career a master set of skills to be able to do that. And I think that's probably what you see very eclectic, very mobile, very international and cross industry in particular. I love the strategy and operations comment because they're both fun, but they're different. John's very execution tactical, operating the business strategies, kind of figuring out the future, the 20 mile stair, you know, playing that chess match, so to speak, all great skills and impressive. But I have to ask you, what got you in the tech sector? Why technology? Well, so, you know, in some ways I kind of fell into it, John, right? Cause when I was growing up, my father was always in the tech space. So he had a business in fax machines and he was a reseller of Canon, if you remember Canon, and microfilm equipment. And I grew up around him and he was a real entrepreneur. I mean, always supervisionary about new things that were coming out. And so as I followed him around, I said, I kind of want to be him. And it's a little bit about that sort of role model, right, early in your career. And then when I moved to the US to study, again, it wasn't like I thought I was going to go to tech. I mean, I wasn't an engineer. You know, I grew up in India with a economics degree. That's what women went into. We didn't necessarily go into science. But when I joined McKinsey in the early days, I ended up working with, you know, the big companies of the days, you know, the IBMs, the MCs, the Microsofts, the Oracles, et cetera. So I just then began to love, love the innovation, always being on the sort of bleeding edge. And I guess it was a little bit just fascinating for me, not being an engineer, to learn how technology had all these applications in terms of how businesses advance. So I guess, yeah, that's kind of why. I still tinker around with it. Yeah, it's interesting how you mentioned, how you, at that time, you pipelighted to economics, which is math, of course. Math is needed for economics, but also the big picture. And this is one of the conversations we're having this year, that breaking down the barriers for women in tech. Now there's more jobs. You don't need to have one pathway into science or, you know, we're talking about STEM versus STEAM. Arts are super important, being creative. So the barriers to get in are being removed. I mean, if you think about the surface area for technology, so I got to ask you, what barriers do you think stop girls and young women the most in considering a career in tech? Yeah, I've got to start with role models, John, right? Because I think a number of us grew up, by the way, being the onlys, not having the allies in the business, right? All of us, all the managers and hiring people are males rather than females. And the fact of the matter is, we didn't have this sort of he for she movement. And I think that's the biggest barrier is not having enough role models and positive role models in the business. I can tell you that research shows that actually when you have female role models, you tend to hire more. And actually what employees say is they feel more supportive when they have actually female managers. So I think there are lots of goodness, but we just need to accelerate how many role models we have. I think the other things I will say to you as well is if you look at just the curriculum and the ability to get women into STEM, right? I mean, we need to have colleges, universities, schools also encouraging women into STEM. And you've probably heard about our Get IT program. You know, it's something we do to encourage girls into STEM. I think it's really important that teachers and others are actually encouraging girls to do math, for example, right? It's not just about science. Math is great, logic is great. By the way, philosophy is great. I just love what you said. I think increasingly the EQ and IQ parts have to come together. And I think that's what women excel at. So I think that's another very, very big barrier. And then the only other thing I will see is we've got to watch the language we use. Like when I think about job descriptions, they tend to be very male oriented languages. We look at CVs. Now, if you haven't been a female in tech for a long time, your CVs aren't going to show a lot of tech, is it? So for recruiters out there, look for competencies, look for capabilities. You mentioned strategy and arts earlier. We have this leadership principles, as you know, John, really well. Think big and dive deep, right? That's strategy and operations. And so I think we need to recruit for that. And we need to recruit for culture. And we need to recruit for people with ambition and aspiration and not always just look at 20 years of IT experience because you're not going to find it. So I think those are some of the big barriers that I at least think is stopping women from getting into STEM. But the biggest one is not enough women at the top hiring women. Yeah, I think people want to see themselves or at least an aspirational version of what they could be. And I think that's only going to get better. A lot's changed, a lot's happened over the years. But now with technology in everyone's life, you know, COVID's pulled forward a lot of realities. You know, the current situation in Europe where you are now has pulled forward a lot of realities around community, cyber, digital, our lives. And I think this opens up new positions, clearly cybersecurity, and I'm sure the job boards in every company is hiring people that didn't have for jobs that didn't exist years ago, but also there's new problems to solve. So the younger generation coming up is going to work on these problems and they need to have role models. So what's your reaction to that? You know, new problems are opportunities. They're new, so usually solved by probably the next generation. They need mentors, all this kind of works together. What's your reaction? Yeah, and you know, let me pick up on something we're doing that I think is really important. I think you have to address age on the pipeline problem. You know, because there just is a pipeline problem, you know, at the end of the day. And by that, what I mean is we need to have more and more people with the, and I'm not going to use the word engineering or science, I'm going to use the word digital skills, right? And I think what we've committed to doing, John, you know, I'm very proud of this, is we said we're going to train 29 people, 29 million people around this world on digital skills for free by 2025, right? That's going to help us get that pipeline going. The other thing we do is something called restart, where we actually do 12 weeks of training for the underemployed and underserved, right? And underrepresented communities. And that means in 12 weeks, we can get someone, and you know this case, I talked to you about this before I love it, fast food operator to cloud, right? I mean, that's what I call changing the game on pipeline. But here's the other step. Even if the pipeline's good, and we often see that the pipeline can be as much as 50% at the very early career women, by the time you get into the C-suite, you're not at 50 anymore, you're less than 20%. So the other big thing, John, this comes back to the types of roles you have and opportunities you create. We've got to pull women through the pipeline. We've really got to encourage that there are sponsors and not just mentors. I think women are, sorry to say this, over mentored and undersponsored. We need more people saying I'm going to open the door for you and create the opportunities. And I had that advantage. I hit people through my career. By the way, they were all men, right? Who actually stood out there and banged on the door and said, okay, Tunisia is going to go do this. And my first break I remember was having done strategy all my life when the CEO called me into the room and he said, you're going to Benelux and you're going to go run the P&L in Benelux. And I almost fainted because I thought, oh my God, I've never run a P&L before. But it's that type of risk taking and that's going to be critical. And I think we've got to train our leaders and our managers to have those conversations, be the sponsors, get that unconscious bias training. We all have it. Every single one of us has it. I think those are the combinations of things that are going to actually help open the door and make us see that actually it's not just about coding. It's actually about sales. It's about marketing. It's about product management. It's about strategy. It's about sales operations. It's about really, really thinking differently about your customers, right? And that's the thing that I think is attractive about technology. And you know what? Maybe that leads you to eventually become a coder or maybe not, or maybe you enter from coding. But those are all the ranges available to you in technology. We're just not good at advertising that. There's more applications than ever before, but I love your comment about over mentoring and under sponsored. Can you quickly just define the difference between those two support elements, mentoring versus sponsoring? So mentors, and by the way, they can range from my son is my mentor, he's a great reverse mentor. By the way, I really encourage you to have the reverse mentoring going. So mentors are people from all walks of your life, right? And you should have half a dozen of those at least, I think, right? Who are going to be able to help you deal with situations, help coach you, give you feedback, respond to concerns you're having, find ways for you to navigate, all the stuff you need, by the way, right? And feedback's a gift, we need that. Sponsors, it's not about the feedback necessarily, it's people who literally will create opportunities for you. Mentors don't necessarily do that. Sponsors will say, you, you know what? Pick up the phone and call John and say, John, I've got the perfect person for you. You need to go speak to her. That's the big difference, John. And I think that couple of sponsors, it's not about many. Yeah, and that's where the change happens. I love that comment. Good call, I'm glad I could double down on that. Now that you have the environment pipeline working, you have the people themselves in the environment getting better, sponsors and mentors all, hopefully working more and more together. But once they're in the environment, they still gotta be part of it. So as girls and young women enter the working sector for tech, what advice would you give them? Because now they're in the game, they're in the arena. So what advice would you give them? Because it's the environments they are now, what's- Yeah, yeah. I mean, gosh, John, it's, you know, you've lived your career in this space. It's an exciting place to be, right? It's a growth opportunity. And I think that's a really important point because the more you enter sectors where there's a lot of growth, and I would say hyper, right, you know, growth, that's just gonna open the doors to so many more things. If you're in a place where it's all about cost-cutting and restructuring, do you know what? It's super hard to really compete and have fun, right? And as we say, make history. So it's an exciting place. Today's world transformation equals digital transformation, right? So tech is the place to be because tech is about transformation, right? So coming in here, the one advice I would give you is just do it because believe me, there's so much you can do. Like take the risk, find someone who's gonna give you that entry point and get in the door, right? And look, you know, what's the worst that could happen? The worst that could happen is you don't like it. Fine, there's lots of other things then to go to. So my advice is, you know, don't take the really bad tips I've received in my career, right? Don't let people tell you you can't do it. You're not good enough. You don't have the experience, right? It's a male's world. You're a woman. It's all about IQ and not about EQ because that's just rubbish, frankly, right? The top tip I was ever given was actually to take the risk and go for it. And that was my father and then all this other sponsors I've had around the way. So that's the one thing I would say. The other thing I will say to you is the reason I advise it and the reason you should go for it is it's purposeful. Technology is changing our lives, you know? And we will all live to be no longer 87, I think a hundred, right? And so you have the opportunity to change the course of the world by coming to technology. The vaccine deployment, John, was a great example, right? Without cloud, we couldn't have launched these vaccines as fast as we did, right? So I think there's a ton of purpose. You've got to get in and then you've got to find, as I said, those sponsors, you've got to find those mentors. You've got to not worry about vertical opportunities and getting promoted. You've got to worry about horizontal opportunities, right? And doing the things that are needed to get the skills that you require, right? I also say one thing, don't let people tell you not to speak up, not to express your opinion. Do all of the above, be authentic, be authentic, sir. You will see more role models. Many, many more role models are going to come out in tech that are going to be female role models. And actually the men are really stepping up to be role models. So we will be better together. And here's the big thing, we need you. We can do this without women. There's no possible way that we will be able to deliver on the absolute incredible transformation we have ahead of us without you. Inclusion, diversity, equity, these are force multipliers for companies. If applied properly, it's competitive advantage. And so breaking the bias, the theme this year, is super, super important. It sounds like common sense, but in the reality is you break the bias, it's not just women, it's men, it's all of us. What can we do better to bring that force multiplier capabilities and competitive advantage of inclusion, diversity, equity to business? So the first thing I would say, and my doctor used to always tell me this, if it hurts, don't do it, right? I would say to you, just do it. Get diverse teams in place. Because if you have diverse teams, you have diversity of thought. You don't have to worry as much about bias because you've got the people around the table who actually represent the world. We also do something really cool. We have something called bias busters. And so in meetings, we have bias barters. People are gonna raise their hand and say, I'm not sure that that was really meant the way it was supposed to be. So I think that's just a nice little mechanism that we have here in AWS that helps. The other thing I would say to you is, be your authentic self. You can't be a man and mention be women. And you're not gonna replicate somebody else because you're never gonna succeed if you do that. So I would say be your authentic self all of the time. We know that women are sometimes labeled as aggressive when they're really not. Don't worry about it. It's not personal. I think the main thing you have to do is, and I advise women all the time, is calibrate the feedback you're getting. Don't catastrophize it, right? Calibrate it, take it in. You don't have to react to every feedback in the world, right? And make sure that you're also conscious of your own biases, right? So I think those are my two cents, John, for what they were for breaking the bias. I love the theme. Be yourself, you know, don't take it too personal. Have some fun. That's life. That's a life lesson. Final question while I got you here. You're a great inspiration and you're a great role model. You're running a very big business for Amazon Web Services. Europe, Middle East and Africa is a huge territory. It's its own thing. It's like you're bigger than some companies out there, your role and your organization. What's the hot area out there? You were talking before camera, that's an emerging areas that you're focused on. People are watching this, young women, young ladies around the world are gonna look at this and say, hmm, what wave should I jump on? What's the hot things happening in Europe, Middle East and Africa? I think the three things I would mention, and I'm sure John, as we've spoken to my peers across the other GEOs, right? There are some similarities. The very, very hot thing right now is sustainability. And people are really building sustainability into their strategy. It's no longer sort of just an ESG goal in itself. It's actually very much part of changing the way they do business. So I think that's a hot part. That's why, again, I think it's a phenomenal place to be. I think the other big thing that we're absolutely talking about a lot is, and you know this is getting even more complicated right now is just around security and cyber security and where that's going and how can we be really thinking about how we address some of these concerns that are coming out. And I think there's a lot to be said about the way we build our infrastructure in terms of that context. So I think that's the second one. I think the third one is people are really looking at technology to change the way businesses operate. So how does HR operate? How do you improve your employee value proposition? How do you do marketing in the next generation? How do you do finance in the next generation? So across the business, it's no longer the place of IT. It really is about changing the way we are as businesses and all of us becoming tech companies at the core. So the big thing there, John, is data. Data at the heart of everything we do. Data not because it's there in front of you but data because you can actually make decisions on the back of it. So those are the things I seem to come across a lot more than anything else. Well, Tanya, it's always great to talk to you. You're senior leader at AWS, inspirational to many. And thank you for taking the time to speak with us here on this great event, Women in Tech's Global Celebration of International Women's Day. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, John, always great to talk to you. We will definitely be keeping in touch more stories to be had. And we're going to bring them to you. This is theCUBE's continuing presentation of Women in Tech, a global event celebrating International Women's Day. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching.