"I'm a lucky person because I love what I do and I wake up every day with the opportunity to help companies to transform their business positively for a better tomorrow," remarks Siki Giunta, Executive VP & Head of HCL Technologies CloudSmart Offerings, Strategy, and Industry Cloud Consulting.
In her role, Siki gets to set the strategy for HCL's CloudSmart which is at the heart of the company's innovation and success - and she also helps to establish Cloud Smart's consulting services. Effective communication and positive collaboration are key to Siki's complex role.
Cloud has become the strategic pillar within any organization to build a responsive, scalable, and resilient business model. Organizations today are facing an urgent need to ‘rethink cloud’ to accelerate digital transformation and maximize business value in alignment with customer needs, organizational goals, and unique market conditions.
"Cloud is such a transformative technology trend impacting every organization," explains Siki. "Being Cloud Smart means having a clear vision of the end-state or North Star that a company wants to achieve by embracing Cloud technology and adopting an execution that is modern, contemporary and produces tangible results at the pace of the business while evolving its own human capital at the same time."
Organizations worldwide are transforming digitally
"Organizations firstly need to define why they need to transform, identifying clear and well-communicated goals and desired outcomes," explains Siki. "Next, it's important to establish a pace, a path, a timing when major milestones need to happen - for example leaving a Datacenter, or an acquisition, etc. The pace must be sustainable by people and business, so this is why we talk about 'transformation' and not 'revolution'.
A company then needs to establish which side of the business will be transformed, for example which applications will be moved or modernized first and why. This clear strategy defines which Cloud platforms and Technology is to be used, for example AWS versus Google. Lastly, the selection of a partner to support and enable the journey is critical. Affinity of goals, credibility in the marketplace, and execution success are all key factors in selecting the right partner."
Digitally transformed organizations see high-performing workplaces
New technologies, emerging skill sets, and the rise of the alternative workforce are prompting businesses to rethink the way people work.
To strategize for the future, organizations need to reimagine the employee experience and turn to people analytics data for workforce planning
When it comes to employees working for a truly digitally transformed organization and how this can positively impact the future of equality issues. Siki says that a smart, agile, scalable, and collaborative workplace environment is imperative for attracting top talent and ensuring effective collaboration.
The future of work is inclusive. “High levels of agility and productivity reshape a workplace experience. We see hyper-connected, globally dispersed, always-on enterprises," she says.
Tech as an ideal career pathway
Siki suggests that technology and digital transformation are great fields for women to work within. "It's positive seeing larger numbers of younger women getting into technology and providing a larger pool for employment, and more potential for success. Still, however, gender diversity remains a challenge and it will take time until parity is achieved," says Siki.
"One of the main reasons is that during schooling we still have work to do in demystifying the complexity of technology for young girls. Additionally, pay equity also remains an issue across organizations but greater transparency is slowly addressing this aspect."
Siki suggests there is still a considerable shortage of technical skills in the world. "The tech industry needs all the help possible, and the entire gender community is critical for innovation," she states.
"Modern digital workplaces have made technology less daunting and more approachable; you don’t need to be a coder or scientist to succeed in the modern digital world," suggests Siki.
"Technology has also been a great enabler for supporting women in the workforce. For example, internet learning has accelerated women's digital education with the ability to balance a growing family.
Curiosity and determination are key for tech consulting
When asked about some of the key skills women require to work in the technology sector and some of the typical career opportunities that tend to be available, Siki believes two key attributes needed are a good dose of curiosity, matched with sheer determination to succeed. She says that many technical skills can in fact be acquired with good hands-on training, great mentorship, and a willingness to try something new.
Siki suggests that technical consulting, especially in organization modeling or design, is an interesting area to work in and that deep technical knowledge solely is not always essential to help deliver a successful project.
"I studied history and civilization for example, not a very technical field, but from my education I have learned that everything has a cycle, drivers, and outcomes. So when I coupled this education with my technical training, I had a third dimension that I would not have picked up just studying technology," explains Siki.
A collective love of innovation
What Siki enjoys most about working for HCL and being part of its progressive work culture is the collective love of innovation that is based on true engineering, and the constant search for a better more modern way to deliver the best service to clients - and this often goes beyond the contract.
"I love that we are truly global, chasing time zones is my occupational hazard every day. I also love that at HCL there is a feeling that we can achieve everything, and our people are always encouraged to try new experiences and learn something new."
Salient career advice
Siki offers salient career advice for women considering a career in the tech industry. "Be true to yourself. Find the fun in your work and be curious and ingenious. This will make the fast pace of technology evolution more interesting."
When Siki is not working she likes to spend her well-deserved downtime reading, watching movies or any kind of sport, doing yoga, working out on her Peloton, or playing golf.
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Disclosure: Where Women Work researches and publishes insightful evidence about how its paid member organizations support women's equality.