 Good morning and thank you everyone for joining us at OSSF London. My name is Tamar Ashhaib Makarim. I'm sorry, I can remove this. Yeah, thanks, Joanne. My name is Tamar Ashhaib Makarim and I'm a lead user experience design consultant at Scott Logic. I'm also a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee at FINOS and I co-lead the events and marketing stream in the EMA region. Today, we've got a panel on women's career progression within Fintech. And we'll talk about the career journey of three leaders within this field that I'm very honoured to be sitting with today to talk about their personal experience in terms of what allowed them to progress in their own career and how they face some of the challenges and go over them in their career. So the main goal today is whatever your role is in this industry, that you'll come away with something tangible, a new perspective, a fresh approach and some practical tips that could help you progress in your own career to give you an idea about the format for the panel. So I'm going to introduce the panellists. We're then going to kick off the conversation. We're not going to have a Q&A as part of the panel, but you can talk to our panellists after that. They're happy to take questions throughout the day. So and at the end, I'm just going to go over some of the key takeaways that could hopefully help you progress in your own career. So let's get started. So here with me today is Claire Grayston, who is an executive director and the Technology CAO at Morgan Stanley, Rita Shatter Verdi, who is an executive director in the wealth management, release and change management at Morgan Stanley, and Jane Gavronsky, who we've met earlier, who is a chief technology officer at Finos, the Linux Foundation. Thank you so much for being here in person today in the middle of a global pandemic. I want to start the conversation by talking a bit about the role of that networking has played in your career. Rita, you've been with Morgan Stanley for over 11 years now, and, you know, you've had to move countries and rebuild your entire network. What role would you say networking played in your career progression? Let me start with saying that networking is really, really important. And we often underestimate the importance of networking in career progression. So as Tamara said, I moved from India to the US in 2002 and began all over in a new country. I had to get some training to re-equip myself to find a new job. And I basically started off not knowing the importance of networking and basically sponsorship in career growth. After I moved to Morgan Stanley, after a few years of working here, I was expecting a promotion. The first year when I was expecting promotion, I was told by my manager that I wasn't put in the process because I did not have strong sponsors to vouch for me. So I went to one of my mentors again, didn't know much about, you know, the role that mentors can play in your career at that point, but I realized it later and I said, well, this is the feedback I got. So how do I go about building sponsorship for myself? She sat down with me and she explained how to build sponsorship. And that's basically about networking. You build connections and you nurture them and you grow them and maintain them over a period of time. It can be within the organization. It can be outside of your organization. But it's really important that it's intentional. So networking is not going to an event like this and meeting 10 people for two minutes each and then coming off and not doing anything with those connections, networking has to be intentional. You maintain it, you grow it over a period of time. And then based on your relationship, those network, right, they come and they can become your sponsors when you are ready for a promotion or for a new assignment or for a very important project. So sponsorship is not just for promotion. It can be for other things as well. And how you build and nurture your network plays a very, very important role in it. So you mentioned sponsors and mentors. What would you say is the difference between a sponsor and mentor and potentially even a coach? Sure. So a mentor is somebody who is like your advocate, like your ally. You can go to a mentor with good, bad, ugly and share your vulnerabilities with them. Ask for advice when you are at your lowest and they will pull you up if they are good mentors, mentors are again, they have you have to be very comfortable with them. So it's not in my experience, a company assigned mentor does not work for me. It has to be a person that I feel comfortable with, that I can connect with somebody who is vested in me and so on. A sponsor on the other hand is somebody who is willing to speak for you when you are not in the room. So during the promotion process or when an important project is assigned or a project has to be given to a person. These sponsors will basically speak for you when you are not around. And these are the people who believe in you based on what you have delivered, what your capabilities are, etc. So sponsors are more for advocacy, whereas mentors are more for advice and coaching during your career. So I'm going to ask the audience here a couple of questions. So how many of you would you say have a sponsor currently by a show of hands? I've got three people. And how many of you have a mentor? So more people. And how many of you find it intimidating or uncomfortable to network? So the majority of people. I really do. So, Claire, was that kind of your experience in terms of networking? And how did you go about expanding your network? Yeah, it's funny because when I was thinking about this question, I was going to open by saying how important networking is coming from someone who's extremely introverted and generally hates having to just go and chat to people. But I mean, I'd echo a lot of the points that Rita's made. I think the benefits of networking evolve as you go through different stages in your career. So when you're starting out and you're very junior, it's about opening doors, it's about finding out about new things, meeting new people, exploring different parts of the company that you're working for, different skills, whereas as your career develops, it becomes, you know, as Rita said, having that sounding board, people you can go to for advice. But also as you as you develop gaining influence and how you get things done and drive change, you can start to tap into that network of people that you've built. And the other thing I would say I've been at Morgan-Stanley for 15 years is that the more that you invest in and nurture that network, you find that people pop up again in kind of various different places as you go through your career. So somebody that you might have invested in a few years ago suddenly turns up on a project that you're working on or in some kind of position where, you know, you're you're in the room and they say, oh, hey, I remember Claire from wherever and and I think there's also a balance between knowing which people are always going to be there in your camp. And you kind of, you know, like friends you haven't seen for 10 years, you know, and it's just the same when you speak to them, whereas there are other people that maybe you do need to put in a little bit more of effort and I've said I've had people that have played all of those different roles of coach, mentor, turned into sponsors, as both of us have kind of progressed and evolved. And I guess so there's this element of networking that, you know, could be a bit intimidating or uncomfortable, but there's also a lot of, you know, it requires a lot of investing time in it. So Jane, from your perspective, how do you how do you think we can basically incorporate that within our day to day job and and create these connections that basically help us overcome some of the challenges that we can find in networking? So as Rita was talking, I was thinking that, you know, one of the and also being one person who doesn't like to reach out to people and sort of thinking of myself as sort of keep your nose down and somebody will recognize what you're doing. I think one of the more natural things is especially in somewhat larger organization, but even in sort of smaller organizations that say vendors who deal with other customers, probably the more natural thing is to reach out to people who are already sitting around the table, who may not be necessarily directly related to you, but they're already there. So you can always say, hey, you know, I'd like to get your perspective on this project that we're working on knowing that it could be, you know, you're an IT in there and accounting or whatever, you know, it still doesn't matter, but creating that human connection. And sometimes it could be purely on human terms. You went to the same school, you have kids who are the same age or whatever it is. And and that pays off because they do turn up. And the other thing I found, especially as I was trying to figure out what to do next and I joined Phinos recently and as I was going through this process, I first of all found it extremely daunting because all of a sudden I knew I had to network to figure out what I wanted to do next. And I really didn't want to do it. And, you know, with some pushing and encouragement and, you know, just kind of bite your lip and do it, I reached out to people who I hadn't reached out to in a long time. And that's the other thing that is surprising, even if you haven't talked to them in 10 years, most likely people are going to respond to you. And I found it a little bit shocking almost. But they do and they like to reconnect and they like to see what's going on. And you get perspectives. And what I'll say is you reach out not necessarily for help, but you reach out for education and exchanging ideas. And that's the other thing I think at least when I'm worried about networking, I'm like, oh, they're going to think I want something from them. And I kind of do, but I don't want to lead with that. And so reaching out and not leading with that, but just connecting and exchanging ideas, it could even be, again, what ballet class your kids should take. You know, it doesn't matter really, but it creates that connection. And you can explore that later usually because they'll say something like, oh, I know so and so you should talk to them because, you know, they're doing something interesting. So, you know, you have to push yourself out there, but be confident in sort of saying, look, I'm not after anything specific. I just want to make a connection and people respond to that. Finding almost like a common interest with them. I guess this is a good point to talk a bit about the role that open source can play here in terms of also building these connections with people, but also potentially giving visibility of our work. What role do you think open source can play in terms of career progression? You know, it's very interesting because also having spent my career in banks, I was always very siloed and, you know, so and so went to another bank so you can talk to them. But, you know, your your network is sort of limited because you only know the people who went who you worked with before. And and one of the things that was fascinating to me about joining this organization was the fact that all of a sudden the whole world is your oyster, like you want to actually talk to everybody. And, you know, frankly, that's one of the reasons I took this job is because I'm going to be forced out of my comfort zone and try to talk to everybody. And so but I also think that I always thought that particularly technology is a great place for women and it's a shame that, you know, not more women are in it and we should push for that because I think it's a very flexible environment and women oftentimes seek flexibility as other people should as well. But but also open source in particular creates effectively a safe space. You're just kind of working together on a project. You don't have to kind of get picked like, you know, in a basketball lineup or something because you're tall or whatever, you just get picked because you put yourself out there in terms of code so you can demonstrate what you can do in a very comfortable at your own pace environment. So I do think that open source is really one of the things is building these communities more naturally for those people who may find it a little bit limiting. And I guess there's also an element almost like a preconception about open source being specifically just for developers and the community is much larger than that. Could you tell us a bit more about that? Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, technology is really it's not just about the code, right? I mean, it's about so many other things. So user interfaces, for example, documentation, business analysis. So and often what you hear is that, you know, people within the technology realm overall, people are looking for people who can think in a logical way, can talk to customers, can can sort of be independently derived. Those are not just purely technical skills. And the same thing goes for open source. You can't just put out a piece of code and just have it hanging out there. It needs so much more than that. So there's many ways to participate. And I think maybe in the technology communities, it's more obvious than it is in financial open source yet, but it's something we can work on. So we've talked about, you know, the role that open source can play in kind of helping us connect with other people, but also the ability. It gives us to make ourselves and our work visible to others. So it almost becomes part of like a public profile that we create for ourselves. Rita, I want to ask you here what, you know, how important do you think building a public profile is to career development? It's actually very obvious. If you have a public profile, it does establish you as a well-rounded leader outside of your organization, also within the organization. You start to get more recognized. You start to get more visibility. And all of those things do help with career growth in long term. So it's really important. So if you have the ability and you have the resources to go out there, build up a public profile, be part of events like this, please, please do that. And I guess there's there's an element of, you know, public profile being important, but also internally within an organization. You know, Claire, you've talked before about kind of the role you played in terms of being part of the networking group for women in London. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Yeah, yeah, sure. So so I now lead our Women in Technology Network in London. And I also spent three years working in New York and was involved in it there, which was actually another great networking opportunity, which helped me build lots of relationships. I'm actually really rubbish at doing any external presence. This is partly why I'm here, because I think I probably need to do more of that. But I think, again, it's all the same themes as networking. It's showing what you can do in a different format, not just in your day job. But again, because I'm in a COO type role, my skills are pretty fungible across different the different kind of areas. But again, it's more people who know you, more influenced that you have and more pieces that you can that you can tie together. In the next section, I want to talk a bit about the challenges that you face along the way. So we've talked about the importance of networking, the role that open source can play and having a public profile or internally within the organization. But along the way, you may face certain challenges and we need to find ways to stand up for ourselves. So here I want to give you a couple of hypothetical situations that you may find yourself in and see how you would deal with. And the different perspectives that you bring to this. So the first situation is you feel you've demonstrated a lot of competence in your career, but you're finding hurdles in terms of getting a promotion or in terms of maximizing your pay. First, I want to ask the audience, like, how many have been in a situation like that? So few people. So, yeah, I want to hear basically how you would approach it. Jane, we can start with you. OK. So I also was in a situation where I didn't get the votes for a promotion, basically, and I went to my boss, who was very supportive at the time. And he gave me actually a very sage piece of advice, which I have since shared many times. And I think it's really if you can heat it, it serves you well, served me well. And he said, look, you, A, need to identify who are going to be the people who will speak on your behalf. Now, you can't always guess that. But let's say I will help you identify a subgroup. And B, you need to go to these people and you need to be very clear with them that you want to get promoted and that you are counting on their support. And somebody will tell you, great, I'm all behind you. And other people will say, yeah, you're not quite there. And it is those people, but all of them you need to keep focus focusing on. And then he said, look, and then you listen to them and you ask them what they think you should do. And then once they tell you what they think that is, you say, right. So now I'm going to make that a plan and I'm going to come back to you every, say, three months. And I'd like to kind of get more feedback from you on how I'm doing what I've done. And by doing that, not only are you continually sharing with them and maintaining the connection, but they become almost naturally, subliminally invested in in supporting your candidacy. It's they don't almost they don't. That's the secret part, I think they don't almost notice that they have now become your advocate because, you know, they're kind of like your teacher. They're grading on you on your progress. And it really works. It really works if you sit down with people and you say, right, so now you said this and I did this and now I'm going to do that. And then you just and you could have struggles. Not everything has to be a perfect grade. But it really, really worked. And you kind of turn people into your advocates by asking them for input on what they think you should do. Is that kind of your perspective, your approach? Yeah, I completely agree with Jin. In my experience, if you want a promotion or if you're facing a career hurdle or you want to maximize your pay, women are considered generally bad at these things because we we are always hesitant asking for a pay raise or asking for a promotion. But I think it's not gender specific. A lot of men are in that same boat as well. The starting point should be talking to your manager. Speak with your manager and have a very honest conversation with them on what your career goals are or your aspirations. It may not always be promotion. It may be getting that next high profile project or getting a raise or a bonus and have a conversation around why you deserve it. And if not, then what do you need to do to get there? Having that specific conversation is really important to set expectations on both sides, because if you and your manager are not on the same page, then you have a big problem. The other thing is that if your manager is not behind you, not supportive of you and does not really give you the specifics of whether you can get what you are looking for or if not, then why can you cannot? Then you probably should look for a change because you're not going to grow with that manager ever. So starting a conversation with the manager, getting to the specifics and then to Jane's point, keep going back with follow ups. Hey, this is what I've done in the last three months. How am I doing? What's your feedback? That's really, really important. It's your career. You have to take charge of it. Your manager is not responsible for your career. So own your career, have the conversation, keep yourself and them accountable. Claire, from your point of view, is there anything that you do differently or that you? Yeah, yeah. So I think I think you both made some some great points there. I think whether it's that next role, promotion, compensation, etc. I think the the absolute first thing is just to know that you yourself are doing the absolute best job that you can do and that you're knocking out the park and to your point about expectations that you believe that you're delivering on what your manager's expectations are. And then I think you absolutely have to have that conversation with your manager. Now, unfortunately, not everyone's manager is going to be receptive to that conversation. And then and then, as you said, Rita, I think that there does have to come a point where, you know, sometimes we have to make tough decisions and reflect on the support we are or aren't receiving and say, you know, do we do we need to make a change? But hopefully people have good managers and and that that bidirectional conversation is around, you know, am I am I meeting your expectations? What do I need to be doing to get to the next level? And to be fair, once you once you've started asking that question, your manager gets that that's what you're looking for. You know, people don't start asking, what do I need to do to get promoted if they're not thinking about getting promoted? So, yeah, but I it's it's not it's never easy. I've been through the didn't get promoted disappointing years as well. And it's more kind of having to pick yourself back up and keep going, keep focused. That's great advice. So the second situation that that I'm going to ask about is if you find yourself in a meeting where one person is either constantly ignoring your suggestions or cutting you off or undermining you, how would you deal with that situation? So we can we can keep the same order. I'm kind of, you know, I'm the softy on this one. I I don't like direct confrontation. And so my my choice would be to try to find some some form of backdoor conversation. I would say, you know, find a way either to get support in that room. If you don't want to directly address the person, it's like, why don't you? You know, I have good ideas. Can I voice them next time? That's one approach. The other is to try to get support in the room to say, hey, could you sort of direct the attention in my direction? You know, when I kind of go like this, you know, I do think sometimes it's it's it's as easy as like, well, I'd like to add something, but and usually people don't physically shut you down. So not being afraid to say that. I often think that, oh, they've already said it. I don't need to repeat. But there are ways to emphasize a point and add a little tweak to it and not to be shy to take that. So I would say my approach would be get support and or if depending on how hostile the person is to you to say, I don't know, maybe you didn't realize, but I'd like to have room to speak. I can cover this topic and have a proposal because I think people are, you know, sort of they get their backs up a little bit when you are more accusative is a strong word. But when you're saying you didn't let me speak, if you come with a positive proposal of I would like to speak about this topic, they'll give you the airspace. So constructive is usually how I would go about it. So in in my experience, there have been times when when an idea was so, for example, I said something in a meeting and nobody registered. And then somebody, especially a man said the same thing and it was registered right away and the credit was given to the person. I've been spoken over as well. And with time and as I grew in my career and gain confidence, what I've learned is that you have to stand for yourself. And you have to say, let me finish what I was saying. For example, when somebody interrupts you and that will just stop them in their tracks and they will let you finish what you're saying. If they if a person is still and it can be anybody in the room, if they still do not, then you need to have a side conversation with them and say, well, it happened a lot of times in the meeting. I was trying to put my thoughts at the table and I wasn't allowed to. So what's really going on here? Have a decent honest conversation with them. If that also does not work, then, you know, of course, you have escalation routes to Jane's point, speak with somebody who can, you know, get you the attention you need in that room. Oftentimes, there are people, especially these days, because we talk a lot about inclusion and diversity. There are people in the room that I've seen will advocate for someone else and say, hey, let that person finish what she was saying or he was saying. Right. So those kind of people are also helpful. But, you know, end of the day, you have to stand up for yourself and say, OK, I have some ideas. I have some input in this meeting or in this conversation. Can I put them forth? Yes, you've also been in a similar situation and remind me never to interrupt you, I think. For me, it really depends on the context and the situation. There are there are groups of people if I was with and somebody was not listening to me, I'd be quite vocal and making my point. But there was a particular case a few years ago when I was a bit more junior and I was in a room of it was all men who were all more senior. And that there was a particular scenario where I was presenting some material. But then the questions in the room on what I was presenting were being directed to my manager, even though I was presenting everything. And there was a really tricky one because I was first of all, I'm like, am I imagining this? And in that situation, I didn't feel I could particularly say anything there. So I took more of this sort of backdoor approach. And afterwards, I guess I asked a couple of people to, you know, did I imagine that and then and then tried to, I guess, build a relationship with a couple of individuals who I thought particularly weren't paying attention and just going that way round of demonstrating what what I thought I was capable of. But in hindsight, you know, again, it's it's partly how your confidence develops. And I probably wouldn't react like that now. I probably would be more forceful and assert myself. But, you know, you have to kind of, you know, assess the situation and the people in the room, I think. There isn't basically a right or wrong answer. It all depends on kind of what you're comfortable with in terms of your character, but but, you know, at the end, you've all reached the leadership positions in your career and had different perspective and approaches to dealing with this. And the last minute, I just want to kind of go over some of the key takeaways that I've captured. So, you know, we've talked about networking and how it's not just about numbers, but it's about building meaningful relationships that could be either external or internal to the organization. You know, the we talked about the importance of building a public profile to be visible, to sponsor that can vouch for us. The role that open source can play, you know, being a tool to showcase our work and make us more visible. And when it comes to things like promotion or pay to have a frank conversation with our manager, set a plan and advocate for ourselves. I want to thank you so much, Jane Rita and Claire for, you know, sharing your career journey with us. And I also want to thank everyone on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee who've helped us organize this, especially my colleague, Javon Beckles. And thank the audience for joining us today. Let's give her a round of applause.