Nidhi Howell | Women in Technology

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Mark Satin Women in Technology podcast. I am delighted today to be joined by a highly accomplished IT director with a very impressive background in systems, transformation programme delivery and data across a range of different industries. Today she is the head of business technology with locks and reinsurance. So a very warm welcome to Niddi Hal. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. So to start off with then Niddi, I think it'd be great for the listeners to understand a little bit about your background, your journey to where you are now, so if you wouldn't mind starting us off with that. Sure. So I've had this sort of very circuitous, I'd say, journey and tech. I grew up in India, moved to the US and did a bachelor's in psychology, and then a master's in organizational psychology at Columbia University, which was really a feeder programme for HR programmes, like HR rotational programmes. For an at that point I still thought I wanted to do HR. For personal reasons I ended up missing the recruiting cycle and ended up as a recruiter at Marshmah Klanin in New York. And apologies, but I hated it. That's quite alright. So turns out that was not my thing. But there was also that really annoying kid asking all of the questions about the recruiting system. Why does it do this and why does it work like that and what does this mean? And everyone got very annoyed with me and finally gave me the business card to the, it was a SaaS provider, a business card to our account exec, and say, go find out. And very quickly I became a system administrator. I was no longer recruiting. Instead I was running the system. I talked to myself business objects and I talked to myself how to sort of configure the backend and learn basic system admin stuff. And then I was running training and the role was getting bigger and bigger. We had more business units to the system. And then I ended up sort of the role kept growing and changing and ended up morphing beyond a recruiting technology into other areas of HR technology. So it grew up in HR technology size. Started participating in kind of global programs, RFTs. We did a couple of global implementations and then going through a massive global HR transformation program, which I was a big part of. And at some point I was in a meeting and we were talking about, hey, let's create this role in London. I made a joke saying, I like to do that role. And somebody called me after the meeting and said, could you have been serious? Because we could make that happen. So I called my husband and said, do you want to move to London? And he said, yeah, sounds terrifying. Let's do it. So we opted to move to London. It was very, it was very, very clear to me it was one way to take it. So if I wanted to come back, we'd have to find a new role effectively. And came here and again, it was a sort of series of different roles within HR tech. But then I ended up getting very involved in GDPR, taught myself data privacy, became certified in data privacy, ended up running kind of legal and privacy portfolios of applications. And kind of was kind of an app portfolio director type thing. So I ended up, you know, had teams, global teams. It just kind of kept expanding and growing as it were. I had two kids over the course of that period of time as well. So it was sort of brilliant support from the organization. And then at some point there was a apparently a meeting where an exact IT board meeting where they were talking about this role in marsh, the insurance side of things. And so a former manager of mine who was on the board meant through my name out there. So we're going to talk about sponsorship at some point, but she put my name in for it. So I got to get this call from the head of IT and from marsh who said come to marsh. Like we have this role we think could be a good fit. So I know nothing about insurance. And I know nothing about insurance or tech. And they said, "Mount it through that stuff." Right? We want you for your skills. And so I said, "Why not?" So moved marsh and spent three years there and again, kind of started as portfolio lead for the, there's just been a major acquisition. So for that book as well as the teams there bringing the teams together, structuring it for growth, like where are we going, what's the strategy, ended up running the entire UK portfolio at some point. And it's sort of got to a point that I was really enjoying the insurance industry that the challenge is for tech there because it's an incredibly technically challenged space in the nicest way to put it. A little allergic to tech, but the industry as a whole is going through quite a bit of a change in that space and digital transformation. It's a big, big sport around. So it's really fascinating and really interesting space. So decided I wanted to say an insurance, but kind of struggling to see growth opportunities. So opted to leave. And after 18 years at marsh and my clinic, I moved to luxury a year and a bit ago as head of business technology. And so it's a smaller team. It's a smaller world, smaller company. It's incredibly agile, incredibly nimble, quite young, bit of a startup mentality, not to no legacy tech, very cloud-mative kind of thing. So interested, different set of challenges and absolutely currently enjoying it. Fantastic. Excellent. Thank you for that. What I particularly love about your journey, I think, and it's kind of prevalent in a few different stages, but particularly the start you mentioned how you went through education with the mind to going into HR. You obviously ended up being a leader with technology space. I just think that's a perfect illustration for you don't have to have a really technical routine of route through education in order to reach that point. Absolutely. I mean, I feel like most of the women I know, quite a few of the men I know actually who are in tech roles, didn't start in tech and didn't study it, didn't see it as a career option early on in their lives. And then have found actually tech touches all of us in some fashion and a lot of people are just really interested in it and have found their way in. And, you know, absolutely, it's been, it's I think you see quite a bit. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing as well is when you took the steps to go into the insurance side of things, obviously not knowing what that was going to look like and not having a background in it. Again, it just goes to show you don't necessarily need that in depth, understanding of the industry to be able to be effective. Absolutely. I mean, I tend to try and differentiate quite a bit between skills and knowledge. And knowledge is you can acquire. You can take classes, you talk to the subject matter experts, there are always people who will know more than you about something. So be open to learn and then you work on your skills separately, right? Because skills are transferable. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a good transition into what advice you have for women who are wanting to join the field of technology. So I think it can be seen as a bit of a men's club in some ways and particular areas of it can be a little bit more prevalent. But I think that difference between knowledge and skills is a really good point and perhaps some advice that you have about women wanting to join the field from there. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I am in a short-track, which is even more of a wish club. Insurance is an industry. I like to joke that the best part about insure-track conferences is no cue for the ladies. So, but yeah, it's coming back to it. There is no one path, I'd say, into technology. It's heck is so ubiquitous, it touches everything, right? So there's no such thing, I think, as a traditional technology role anymore either, right? There's so many different roles that you could do within a tech space. It's very much to me. It's about aptitude. It's about being under-fraid to ask questions, leaning into the opportunities when they come up. I'm a big proponent of just say yes, right? So clearly I've done it several times in my career when the opportunities come up, say yes. You know, rather, I'm yes, it sounds terrifying. Let's do it. So I think I know many people who don't have traditional technology backgrounds, but are in tech. So I'm also very important that I am seeing more women come up through more traditional technology backgrounds now, who are studying it, and I love that, right? I love that we're starting to see that now. So I think my biggest piece of advice is, you know, don't try away from putting yourself forward for the opportunities, just go for it. There's this, you know, the statistics that gets used, that women don't apply for jobs unless they are 100% qualified. I might stop it because nobody's going to be 100% for the job. And you have 50%, 60%, go for it. I mean, I'm a huge believer in learning on the job. So oftentimes it's, yes, there's some basic criteria you need to meet, but the rest of it you can learn on the job. So it ends up being much more in conversation and what do you bring to the role that's maybe a softer skill that you can't put on a CV in the same way, right? So, so, but. for it, have the conversations, kind of learn how to market yourself and where you bring value to a role. And I think that's an important point to go into in a little bit more detail, if you don't like. Obviously as a hiring manager yourself, that is very much going to be embodied in the way that you perform recruitment and what you're looking at for. So that is naturally going to be something that will hopefully become more prevalent as time goes on as well. But I guess just a couple of thoughts from you around being our own manager and what the key considerations are for you when it comes to looking at the CV or looking at someone who you're interviewing. What are you really looking out for? A lot of the time, I mean there's a basic sort of technical baseline, right, particularly for like if I'm a hiring a developer, like you have to know the things I want and I need you to do, right? Absolutely. But there's also softwares also if you're looking for a BA, if you're looking for project manager, there's a discipline, there's a thoughtfulness, there's like how do you approach a problem, right? Because in the interview, I'm going to give you some problems to think about. So I'm curious about your thought process in approaching something like that. How do you do stakeholder management? Where do you shy away from conflict versus where are you up for sitting in the room and being shouted at? In some cases or how do you handle that? And the one question I tend to find really tells you a lot about a person is when you say, "Okay, so you're not going to know these things in the role, right?" So reinsurance, not a big technical market, therefore, talent pool for it, right? So most people I've interviewed since Dr. Mains, like how are you going to learn reinsurance, right? Like we'll give you some training, obviously. But you know, what are you going to do to learn it as well? And it tells you a lot, again, about the proactiveness of the thought process, like the really good candidates, so like, "Yeah, the years of research have already done, right? Like here's what I already know." Explain this term to me. What does that mean? Right? So others, there's a very passive sort of, well, I expect you're going to teach it to me. And it's like, "Oh, I don't know that we're going to, necessarily. I'm not a micromanager as well, right? So I'm one of people who are going to be self-starters, and we'll kind of take things and run a minute." So I'm almost left. Beyond the baseline of technical skills, I'm much more interested in how you learn and how you grow and what you're looking for. Absolutely. And that is such an important point, isn't it? Because that is, that's something that you can prepare for ahead of an interview. It's not something that you need to go in depth about, but it is about how you prepare for that conversation and how you go about solving that problem, even if finding the answer might take a little while, as long as you've learned what you need to learn through that process. That's going to be more beneficial than someone who just doesn't have that same desire, but might have a slightly better technical understanding of what particular place. Right. And it might be because, I mean, I think much of my career group has been of me sticking my nose in places that I can be out of focus. It's like, "Why? What is this problem over here? How can I help solve it?" So I tend to look for it for that kind of thing, because I find people like that probably do well on my team as well. Absolutely. And you mentioned a little earlier that female candidates are becoming a little bit more prevalent in technology through sort of more traditional technical roots of education, which is fantastic. I think it's worthwhile thinking that there are probably certain areas of technology that are yet to quite bridge that gap. You mentioned development, that's probably one area where we haven't quite seen that address just yet. I guess I'm going to understand your thoughts around what we can do to continue to help bridge that gap as time goes forward to make sure that we're continually trying to do it and not just resting on our laurels of where we are right now. Yeah. I mean, I think we, I'm very thoughtful about that that I've got two young daughters. Right, so they're both under 10. And I want them to know that they can have a STEM career. Whatever that is looks like for them, it might be tech. I think they've only recently realized technology is something mom does, right? So what that means, I don't know yet. So I'm welcome to know that that is an avenue open to them and and and to not feel shut out from it as they grow. But anecdotally, I've also heard that the secondary school here, one of the other girls who was moving into it was looking for secondary school opted not to go to the local one because there were no girls in the computer park. Interesting. Okay. And she was interested in that, right? So why aren't there girls in these programs? Like, why do they self select out? Like we know this that that as as girls grow, the the amount of them engaged in these kinds of programs, like just gets until we find that we get to uni, you're in one percent, right? Or something to that fact. So how do we bridge? How do we solve that? Right? And I'm personally interested in it because I got two girls we're going to go through this. But also like you're self-slifting out your talent pool. So by the time you get to that level, we're looking to hire these people, then they're not there. Absolutely. But the other piece I'm also thoughtful about is so much of the Boy's Club as it were comes from sort of random conversations with people, somebody extending an arm to help, right? Like how can we how can we do this? And so I'm trying also trying to be thoughtful about how can I do that? Like when I find the young women who are interested in but maybe have struggling to break into it, how can I help? Right? So I'm hoping to I was at a dinner and I'd started chatting to our waitress and she's a data scientist and she's looking for an internship. So I'm hoping to hire her. So at least give her an internship, right? Because I was like these are the people I want to see grow, right? I don't want to make this how the boys do. So I think thoughtful about those kinds of things. But then you also get into and say once you've gotten women in the in the organization, how do you grow them? How do you support them? How do you encourage that kind of personal development where where you learn to stand up yourself or you learn to advocate for yourself? Like know your worth, advocate for it. And I think as a manager it's it's imperative that you help the women on your team, help everyone on your team not to advocate for themselves. But particularly the women, right? And I remember me absolutely blown away when I was in March and I knew her to this team and there was a woman on the team and she wrote me this email within like a month of her joining my team to say that she's like this is what I'm worth. This is what I know this is what I'm worth because I've been interviewing. I don't want to leave and want you to pay me this. And I was like actually I know that the exactly you are worth that 100% and I so I did the research talk to the business they all loved her she was beloved. But she came to me I mean I have even noticed that for another six months she came to me and said this is what I want. And so I found her the money. Interesting that she also exposed the fact that her entire team was underpaid so we ended up dealing with that as well. But you know like so teach women that they should do that. But then also how do you support create the inclusive environments for it, right? I'm insurance and short-track is very much the relations are built at the pump. So it's so you've got to kind of consider the team environment environments that you're creating then. And how do you incorporate maybe more events like like club or crazy golf or something like that where there isn't that kind of pressure to drink. Not all women are comfortable with that. You know not men are comfortable with it either frankly like we should be creating better better team outings and better but a ways to build those relationships. But you know but also sometimes you do have to just show up at the pub. You don't have to drink but you have to show up at the pub because it is where you make the relationships that is where you build trust with the business. The sort of way you start to be considered a partner is because you're present, right? Some of the some of the challenges don't aren't told to you in the office or on a Zoom call. You'll hear it because they're complaining about it over a pint. So I feel like that was a few different things but it was kind of a I feel like we could do better to you to support women in the workplace than creating environments where they thrive and grow but also like I'm really really thoughtful about how do we encourage girls to to get into the field to begin with. Absolutely you're right there there's a lot to unpack in that forties and there because there's a sort of very grounded level of how do we you know make the education system better and more encouraging for girls to want to go through those courses take on STEM subjects and ultimately pursue a career from that perspective which is a huge challenge right and fundamentally where it needs to start that equally you know when when you've got you know women in a particular field you need to ensure that they are bought in and bought in on a journey and I think there's probably a lot that organizations need to still do to try and encourage that and to try and make sure that they are you know catered for and pushed forward as well in a lot of cases and and it is going to be a slightly different way of doing things and I think part of it is awareness and I just understand what needs to change and and as you said about being present as well I think that's being a part of it is such a crucial part of the query as well, right? You need to make sure that those you've got in your team have a seat at the table and then they have a voice as well. Let's say they make sure they are present in the room. - Yeah, I mean, that's actually a really interesting point because I think my absolute pet peeve is having a seat at the table and not using it, not using a voice, right? And I can create opportunities for you to have that voice, but if you don't take the opportunities, or if you're like, no, I don't have any questions. Or, you know, then it's sort of like, what are you wasting a seat at the table, right? Whereas maybe somebody else could be adding value to this meeting. Now this was drummed into me really early where I was in a meeting with a bunch of like, people more senior than me, and I didn't agree with what they were saying, but I didn't say anything in the meeting. And came out afterwards and my boss pulled me into a room 'cause she wanted to debrief on it. And at that point I said, well, this is what was wrong with the proposal that was put forward, right, these are, this is everything that's not gonna work. And she was so frustrated, she's like, why didn't you say this in the meeting? Because now we've got to waste everyone's time bringing them all back together and go over this again when we could have just done it then, right? Like you now wasted everyone's, it was a real kick in the past. So, and I've tried to keep that in mind ever since. Like if I'm in the room for a reason, and sometimes you, sometimes you can't always, like there's a lot of people where you can't get in a word that provides an a meeting. So fair enough, you can't do it every time, but generally if you're at the table, contribute, right? Like if you're in a meeting multiple times and say nothing, I'm probably gonna drop you off the meeting. And so there's a reason I invited you. - Precisely, yeah. And there's almost a psychological element to that as well. And I know I've read studies about it's a good thing to do to get your voice in the room early. You know, be one of the first people to ask a question or even just talk to someone across the room or across the call, whatever it is about something. Just get your voice in the room or in the call as early as possible is, you know, positive for you psychologically to then feel comfortable doing it again and also makes everyone else aware of your presence and then they're more likely to be listened to as well. So there's a psychological element to it as well, which can be a challenge you want to overcome. - And I mean, I think a lot of people feel like, oh, I'm asking you a stupid question, right? Or I'm, you know, I bet everybody else knows this answer, right? And that's not the case. And you know what, even if everybody else don't know the answer, it's still value in you getting the answer, right? 'Cause it made lead you to a different way of thinking. And you're always better off having asked the question, I think. Then, you know, living in sort of ignorance or fear of asking the question. Now, that does trigger in pasta syndrome, right? For a lot of people, an embossager, and I also don't think it's unique to women. I know plenty of men who have it. So you have to find your path to being comfortable with asking the question, right? Whether it's overcoming it, whether it's, you know, whatever coaching you need, sometimes like there's a fear of being the voice in the room and having everyone look at you and you know. So you have to figure out how to put that in practice for yourself. Like what's, what's, this is arriving mentorship will often help. I mean, I'm a huge advocate if everybody sure they'll always have a mentor, at least one. There's, there's mentorships are short lived, like usually sort of three to six months to answer a specific question, right? Like, you know, Alex, help they figure out how to ask the question. Right? And then we'll talk about, okay, here we need to discover. Now, here's one, I know about those meetings, here's 10 questions I could ask, maybe you come and really rehearsed to ask one question and that's okay, right? So the more you practice it gets a muscle memory and more you practice you get better at it. I mean, I've had times where I've had like two or three mentors at a time and sometimes I have none. So, right, because it's often problem-based. And I don't know people always think of it that way. So I, you know, like really encourage all women to be to have a mentor. And if you don't know who should, you sure your mentor should be, like find some mentors. Say, this is what I'm struggling with. Do you know someone who'd be good at helping me through it and give me some advice and mentorship and then you drive that relationship for how long it takes to get to know yourself? Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose as a mentor yourself, because it can always be a bit of a challenge, right? Can't it? Asking someone for advice on this, but other mentor yourself, what's, what do you feel when people come to you asking for advice or asking how they approach different things? I mean, I absolutely value it incredibly, because I also, it's a chance for me to learn the kinds of challenges other people are going through, which I can often, you know, it's blind to, right? It's so much based on your own experience and lived experience that you just don't think of some of these other things. I'm incredibly fortunate that I have a partner who's the same as that, right? So I couldn't do the job I was doing and go to the pub if I didn't have that, right? And so I've had women who've essentially come to me to say, like teach me how to build that kind of balance that allows me to grow my career as well as, you know, manage my home life, right? Or, and it's like, it's kind of a wake up call for me, like not everyone is as lucky as I am in or fortunate that I am in that case. And it's good for me to know that, and then I help incorporate it into being a better manager as well. So, so yeah, I've always got more or two mentees and I really, really appreciate it. It's a really good way to get out of my own head. Yeah. Absolutely. And I suppose as a, as a final point to try and continue to beat the drum for technology at what a fantastic place did its work. As we say, it touches so much of what all businesses do and all areas of the business. And I think it's only going to continue to do so and more and more guys is. What is it for you about working technology that is so particularly exciting, both within insurance that maybe wider than that as well? I mean, I think my, the thing that I like most about it is it is constant problem solving. It's like this logic puzzle that never goes away, right? So it's sometimes it's a huge problem you're trying to solve, like a five year strategy that's going to cost millions and millions of pounds to accomplish. Or, you know, we need to open a new office in a new country and I know nothing about this. And let's go figure out how to do it. Or suddenly, oh god, data privacy regulations. Let's figure out what that means for us. But also sometimes it's really, really small problems. Like, you know, I'm trying to find a piece of kit to help meaning scheduling. Or, you know, how do I do it in Microsoft form? Like, or, you know, I've got this challenge that I want to build something and what's the best way to do it and what's the right piece of tool to use? Like I just love the different types of challenges to it. It's effectively problem solving at its core. It's also such an evolving area, right? Tech mode, faster than anything. And it's, that's a piece to it is how do you keep that? You're constantly having to learn. You constantly happy to have skill yourself. And like it just keeps your brain going. And I absolutely love that. Fantastic. Excellent. I think that's a really positive advert for technology. And I'm sure we'll resonate with a lot of people. So thank you very much for sharing that. And thank you very much for joining us, Niddy. I really appreciate your time. Thank you, Parvini.