Women in Tech - Priyanka Mehta, Deutsche Bank

At Morgan McKinley, we are passionate about supporting women in Data Analytics and Technology. Priyanka Mehta from Deutsche Bank takes part in our blog series to share her success stories, career-defining moments and what advice she would give to another female looking to pursue a similar career.

Profile: Priyanka Mehta, IT Service Delivery Manager at Deutsche Bank. Priyanka has been with the Bank for six years and has an overall experience of 20 years. She gained extensive experience across different industries including Investment Banking, Real Estate, IT Services and Automotive. She holds under her belt industry recognised professional certifications like PMP, Prince2 Practitioner, Six Sigma Green belt and Agile Scrum to name a few. She started out as a computer faculty, progressed into a programmer, and then onto project management and service delivery.  

What are the key habits that you feel make you successful?
Key Habits that I feel make me successful are:

• Extensive Reading across a wide variety of topics 
• Investing in a range of professional programs
• Practising mindfulness - that equips me with the capability to be resourceful, pay attention to details and is very useful in problem-solving.

What's the most valuable piece of advice you have received in your career and how did it help you?

• Have an open mind and embrace opportunities that come your way. Sheer determination, hard work and the hunger to learn have been my best friends since. New opportunities through new roles have allowed me to broaden my perspectives and understanding of all the different industries I have worked in. 
• Support and empower your team and listen to them at all times. That not only helps develop your relationship with them but also helps them grow in their careers. Doing this has really helped me gain the trust of my team members and improved capacity to get things done. 

What's the most challenging situation you have faced in your career and how did you overcome it?
The most challenging situation in my career was during my stint with Emaar MGF, a real estate developer. This is where I led the project to deploy primavera, a project management solution for the construction industry. While this involved setting up the configuration as per the specific requirements of the 44 projects at that time, the key to the success of this project actually laid in the hands of the people to update the schedules. Bringing in technology to places such as construction sites was challenging, as most of the dominant workforce was unwilling to adapt. As a woman in tech, trying to bring about that change was even harder, but I decided to get creative to get what I needed for the success of my project. I started to tailor trainings for each of the sites and invited the workforce. That sounds simple but what I also added to those trainings were incentives for those who attended and followed through. It had a badge program to reward those who went above and beyond just updating the actual project status. This not only led to the success of my project but also in a very meaningful way to aid worker technology adoption in the long run. No matter what technology or software you implement, you need to also invest efforts in a training and support program that will take adoption to the next level. 

How do you approach making a difficult decision?
My approach to decision making has been to always think in years not in days so your decision is future oriented. This helps my mind shift from reaction mode to strategy mode. Once I have evaluated all facts and have put in the thought all I do is to take the decision, stay strong and commit to it. As Nobel-prize winning economist, Milton Friedman wrote: "The best measure of quality thinking is your ability to accurately predict the consequences of your ideas and subsequent actions." 

To hear from other inspiring women in the Data and Technology space, please click here.