How embracing change is paying off for Capital One: An interview with Kaj Bansal and Lauren Corderoy
Technology is a fast-growing sector, which has really carried the rest of the country throughout the pandemic. But it hides a dirty secret - and it doesn't hide it very well.
Men still dominate the tech landscape: according to an Office of National Statistics report released in February, women hold just 31 per cent of tech jobs in the UK. Looking at leadership roles, the disparity is even worse: just 10 per cent of UK IT leaders identify as women.
It's widely accepted that diversity is a strength. Having multiple perspectives improves trust and collaboration, and prompts new approaches to challenges. But, the lack of female mentors and role models ironically discourages other women from entering tech - perpetuating the cycle.
"When I first joined tech, it wasn't obvious, but I did become acutely aware after my first few weeks and months that I was the only female in the room, and quite often I was the only female of colour in the room," says Kaj Bansal, technical programme manager at financial services giant Capital One.
Kaj is a Capital One veteran, having worked there since 2006. She acknowledges that diversity has improved massively in that time, but there is still progress to be made:
"I still think there's a way to go in the women of colour space, and I still think there's a way to go in the experienced woman of colour space, as well. I think we're doing great work on the pipeline, but the other side of the spectrum [getting women into leadership roles] needs more."
In contrast to Kaj, Lauren Corderoy is a new starter, who joined Capital One as a software engineer in 2019, straight from studying Computer Science at university. When we spoke she was on a graduate scheme, working in different departments around the company.
"I did a short stint in Design, which is obviously a little bit better in terms of the [male to female] ratio - but then I came back into Tech in a mobile role, and found that...most of the time I was the only woman in the Zoom or room, which I've not really experienced before."
She points out how easy it can be to forget about the importance of equal representation when you're so used to the status quo:
"I've spent so much time being the only woman in the room that I've been kind of cornered into being comfortable with it... That's perfectly fine for me, but it's not fine for the next woman that comes in, and it's not fine for the next generation of female leaders that come in. I'm trying to use my privilege and the spot that I have to make room for women coming in, and to encourage people to come up."
The goal is 'Cool'
Both Kaj and Lauren talked about the ‘pipeline', often used as shorthand to refer to the flow of women from education into tech roles. While things are improving, Lauren - who had to change schools at A-level to be able to study computing - says there is much more work to be done.
"In my first year of Computer Science at uni [in 2016] there were 137 students on my course, and nine of us were women, which is less than seven per cent. You hear so many stats about it, but that is a statistic from my life and I've lived through that; being one of the nine and looking around the room and being like, ‘Well, there's only eight other people here that have potentially experienced what I've experienced, and the other 128 have no idea', though that's through no fault of their own. It's terrifying, when you put it in percentages."
I was almost in tears
Lack of representation turns women away from tech, but so does being made to feel like an outsider - being excluded. That's still a problem in both education and the workplace, even if it's unintentional. Both Lauren and Kaj have their own stories:
Lauren says, "There were moments at uni where I would ask a question and a lecturer would respond in quite an aggressive way, and then a male counterpart would ask the same question and get a completely different style of response. I remember that happened and the guy that was next to me turned round and he said, ‘That was so rude', and I was almost in tears because that was my first proper experience of - he treated me like that because I'm a woman, that's the only difference here."
Kaj, meanwhile, recounts a memory of being made to feel like an outsider - hidden with humour. It drives home the importance of having empathy with colleagues, and understanding that a throwaway comment to you can be hurtful to someone else.
"I was in a previous role before [Capital One] as a data analyst, and not a very good one because I'm not great in tech; but it was a team of white men and I remember when I first said, ‘I think I want to move over to tech'; I wasn't excluded, but it was that general kind of, ‘What - you want to move over to tech? You're not that great as a data analyst, why would you want to move over to tech?' It was banter, definitely, it wasn't meant with any malice, but that is something that sticks in in my mind."
The goal, says Lauren, is to be in a space where being a woman in the tech space is not unusual. Rather than hearing, "You must be so clever/driven/ambitious," the only response she wants when she tells someone she's a software engineer is a single word: "Cool."
"You don't need to be impressed by me, just respect that I've managed to do it," she says.
Embracing change
So, having more women in tech departments is a good thing for most companies; and having the empathy to help them through the pipeline is important. But what else can companies and IT leaders do on a practical, day-to-day level?
Kaj recommends "breaking down what a tech role means... There's this big stigma that to work in tech you need to be able to code, you need to have been an engineer, you need to learn computer science." But Kaj herself, although she's now in a leadership position at Capital One, doesn't have a technology background.
"I think it's about breaking down those barriers and going out there and saying, ‘If you've got great organisational skills, if you are a great leader, if you manage people really well or you coach really well and you can manage a team, if you can see something through from inception right through to delivery - they are great skills'. You don't need to be able to code to be successful in tech, and I think if we can start breaking that down, maybe we'll start, as an industry, attracting experienced women who can be role models for some of the more junior women that are coming in through the pipeline."
If I didn't see a woman on the stand, I wouldn't go over
Which runs nicely into Lauren's own recommendation: make women visible. Not as an act of tokenism, but as a genuine celebration of their success. By doing so, you will find more women are willing to consider your business as a fair place to work.
"From my personal experience in education, it just would have been so great to see a real-life female engineer in person, at any point during my education. I even remember going to careers fairs when I was thinking about what A-levels to do and you would see these stands - obviously I was going to tech stands and various other engineering-based ones - and if I didn't see a woman on the stand, I wouldn't go over. To me, that means there's no one at that company that I can relate to and that has been through the same journey that I have been and will be going through."
That doesn't only apply to women. The tech industry is still seen as the domain of white men, but by promoting the important work of people who break the mold, you can help to change that perception. Building teams of LGBT+ people, of different ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds and genders is a big change, but it's one that will pay off in the long-term.
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