#EachforEqual: Excelling as a Woman in Tech

Former US First Lady Michelle Obama once said, “There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.”[1] From the world’s first computer programmer to CEOs of global tech giants — countless women over the decades have risen to the challenge and made their mark in what was traditionally considered a male-dominated tech industry, paving the way for generations of women to come.

This International Women’s Day, we sat down with Sandra Stonham, Managing Director of Technology and Operations at DBS, who has led groundbreaking tech initiatives and championed innovations within the bank.

More women are joining Singapore boardrooms. However, locally listed companies are still behind the global average. As a woman leader, what’s your take on gender diversity?

Gender diversity is extremely important for many reasons. I am a believer that we are all born equal but we are not all born the same, and diversity of all kinds is very important to get the best balance of capabilities within a team or organisation. Diversity helps brainstorm ideas, solve problems, navigate situations to arrive at optimum outcomes and no company can ignore the benefits that this brings.

You’ve had an illustrious career in the IT sector across various banks. What motivated you to pursue a career in technology, and how did you drive your success?

I’d like to say that I had some big lightbulb moment that drove my career in technology but in fact, it was nothing so interesting. In my studies, I narrowed my interests to Maths, Physics and Computer Science — specialising in subjects I enjoyed. I continued to move steadily in that direction when I was in university with a degree in Electronic Engineering and by the time I graduated, a career in technology was pretty much a given.

Driving success is a different question. I am very motivated by big picture strategy, as well as trying new things and making things better. In every role I have had, I have always tried to think about a five-year plan — what does the future look like and what is the best way to get there? Then I go after making it happen, no task too big or small, or if it is immediately within my reach or not. This passion and focus meant that I have always stepped up to drive new opportunities that I believe in. Setting and driving a strategic agenda, and having the energy and commitment to make it happen, I think those are essential ingredients for a successful career.

DBS is known globally for being at the forefront of digital innovation. What excites you the most about your role at DBS?

There are many exciting aspects of my role at DBS. One is the opportunity, encouragement and support to drive major changes and introduce new ideas. The comprehensive transformations we are doing in both tech and operations, as well as supporting our business partners to do the same is very exciting.

On the other hand, what excites me is also the capability and partnership of everyone I work with. We have awesome people in DBS who not only believe we can be a leader in our field but also walk the talk with consistent hard work and dedication. I am always delighted by the people I work with, who not only come up with new ideas but also educate and transform themselves to turn those ideas into reality.

These sound very exciting indeed. You have headed cutting-edge innovation projects in DBS such as Gandalf and Public Cloud. Could you share more?

Yes indeed, and I believe passionately that both Gandalf and Public Cloud are essential to our future, and would love to see more innovation and transformation in those areas.

In Gandalf, we transformed our underlying infrastructure, made ourselves agile, leveraged DevOps and introduced APIs for external connections. Today, we have raised the bar further with a target to make 40% of our applications cloud-native, as well as driving key enablers such as internal APIs to link applications. This would enhance our ability to be data-driven through instrumentation and analytics, beefing up our capability to ensure we design for security in every application. These are ambitious changes for any organisation by any means, and part of our success is because we are focused on the mantra — ‘what you can measure you can manage’. And by ensuring we can measure the various elements of Gandalf, we have achieved an impressive transformation across the bank.

Public Cloud is another massive transformation opportunity and for some years now I have been passionate in my belief that Public Cloud is indispensable. One aspect of Public Cloud is to leverage native services, meaning that we accelerate our in-house development efforts. This extends from simple services to highly complex services such as analytics. This is crucial as leveraging external analytics services will help us to remain competitive as a business as well as an employer of choice in talent acquisition. Another aspect of Public Cloud is that all of our underlying infrastructures become software-defined and dynamically scalable. This means that once it is configured it will be consistent and repeatable, scalable as necessary — essentially removing huge toil that is associated with legacy infrastructures. If we can leverage those opportunities, we can re-direct our resources to work on high-value-add initiatives, and only then will we be able to think of ourselves as a tech company.

These are all very cool! We understand that you are also a strong advocate of innovation and learning in the workplace. Can you share some highlights about the upcoming DeepRacer League that you’re introducing to the bank?

Yes indeed, I am super excited about the DBS DeepRacer league, which will run from April to September across the bank. DeepRacer is an AWS Public cloud native service, specifically designed for both beginners and experts to understand AI. It also has the additional benefit of having fun — teams and individuals from different business units, countries and platforms get to experience friendly competition in a car race around a track while learning about AI.

We have partnered with AWS to make this as impactful for DBS employees as we possibly can. We expect many beneficial outcomes from running this league such as exposing our employees to stronger appreciation of cloud services and AI, and eliminate inherent fear they may have. Engaging teams and individual participants in various competitions within the league will support upskilling and mastery of technical skills. The most exciting benefit of all, we will send three winners to fly the DBS flag high at AWS Re:invent in November in Las Vegas, in hopes of positioning DBS on the global stage as a top tech company.

This year, the theme for International Women’s Day is #EachforEqual. What are your thoughts on equality? Any advice for other women in tech?

I think #EachforEqual is a superb and necessary theme. The importance of the theme is still very relevant today where there are glaring inequalities even in the most progressive countries. However, even in the most equal environments, I have to reiterate — we may be born equal but we are not born the same.

Today, the tech world is still dominated by men. As women, we can help ourselves by actively learning some of the differences in how men and women’s brains are wired, before applying those learnings in how we deal with people. One of the most interesting books I have read is called, ‘Why Men Don’t Listen and Why Women Can’t Read Maps’ by Allan and Barbara Pease. I highly recommend it. Enjoy!

Sandra Stonham is the Managing Director of Technology and Operations at DBS, with more than 20 years’ experience in the banking IT sector. An important driver and passionate supporter of DBS’ culture of innovation, Sandra constantly encourages her team to challenge the status quo by spearheading cutting-edge programmes and initiatives.

[1] http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/06/michelle-obama-there-will-be-woman-president-very-soon/1#.Xm8hWJMzaqR