To mark the occasion this year, we therefore asked these five UBP women in tech-related jobs about their views on the tech sector, where it has come from and where it is going:
- Audrey Takassi-Kikpa, Business Manager, Treasury & Trading
- Angela Lee, Quality Assurance, Compliance Asia
- Nikolett Kovacs, CSR Manager, COO
- Stéphanie Maillefaud, Change Governance Program Manager, COO
- Laetitia Sordet-Thaunay, Community Manager, Group Communications
What has led all these women to take their careers towards technology is a lifelong fascination with the mysterious power and promise of digital tools that human ingenuity has constructed to aid our development. They are naturally all very adaptable types of people and thrive on the fast evolution of the tech industry. As Stéphanie puts it:
“I love anticipating client behaviours and expectations, finding the most efficient way to reach solutions and targets, and thinking outside of the box to explore how to address new requirements.”
As regards the applications of technology in finance, from Community Manager Laetitia’s point of view, “digital communication tools enable fast and efficient connections between people who are not necessarily in the same region or country. This makes it much easier to share information and make quick decisions. More specifically, social networks offer financial professionals the opportunity to share their investment views with a wide but relevant audience.” She adds that the many metrics she has access to for monitoring the Bank’s communications on social networks “give us valuable insights into what kind of content works, what we could do better, and how best to allocate our media budget to reach our target audiences.”
Audrey points out that such support from technology is necessary nowadays as our clients increasingly want to be involved in the management of their portfolios, expect very quick returns on their investments, and demand transparency.
“In the future we may have multiple technological resources to analyse financial and client data and identify synergies, for example. Oh, wait, the future’s already here!”
When asked what they think will be the most important innovation for the future of finance, our respondents cite artificial intelligence as a valuable way of increasing efficiency, generating new ideas, reducing our carbon footprint, saving time on repetitive administrative tasks, reducing fraud, and, as Nikolett points out, analysing complex sets of data to facilitate and improve our sustainability data disclosures, just to name one example. That said, they agree that with AI as with any technology, there’s no point in going faster than the music. “There is also the growing recognition of the risks associated with technology, such as cyber security threats and potential job displacements, so efforts should also be made to ensure that technology is implemented in a responsible and sustainable manner,” says Angela.
But being techy is not just about being nerdy: one of the aspects of their jobs that these ladies like the most is the interaction with people and teamwork, as well as the creativity needed to find solutions to problems. And these are the uniquely human – and feminine – attributes for which technology, however intelligent it becomes, will always need people – including women.