Curiosity and diversity for women in technology at Barclays

Created by VERCIDA for Barclays

 

Tami Kuboye talks about how curiosity and a desire to stand up for women in technology have led to a rewarding STEM career.

 

Tami Kuboye

 

I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, in a very bohemian family. My parents had professional careers, but being jazz musicians meant we always had people from around the world sleeping on our living room floor. From an early age I decided that I wanted to study law, because I’d seen it on TV, but my upbringing made me a curious person – this is how I ended up working in technology.

In my third year of uni, I started to ask myself, ‘Why the heck did I choose this path?’. I found it uncreative, but stuck with it, passed my exams and qualified as a lawyer. I started working in that field but my curiosity opened doors for me in technology. I was always curious about how things work, and would be the one changing the light bulbs or fixing fuses at home. 

 

My Career at Barclays

I have been with Barclays for five years now. When I started, I had just come off maternity leave and had previously worked with a life-insurance company in Germany. I had always been a contractor, so I thought the job with Barclays in the UK would be temporary. I started in the programme management officer space, but had the opportunity to deliver a small project within my first month here. That’s one of the things I love about Barclays – there are always opportunities available.

I’ve worked in a few different teams and it was difficult at first to move into new areas where I would be doing new things, but I always jumped at the opportunity and turned adversity into victory. Now, I am a VP Programme Manager within Business Banking. 

There’s no such thing as a typical day, but mine starts with a scrum call with my team, strategising about how we are going to deliver our projects. In an organisation the size of Barclays, everything is interconnected, especially when it comes to technology, so we work with lots of different teams to make sure we don’t break anything. 

 

Barclays’ Women in Technology network

I am co-chair for Barclays’ Women in Technology network in Europe. We have a strong presence in our six regions, but our main tech campuses are Radbroke, Northampton and Glasgow. Our four pillars are to attract, retain, inspire and celebrate female tech talent.

Workshops to upskill and empower women are important. Most recently, we held personal branding workshops to help our women clarify their values, enabling them to take charge of their career path. We aim to set women up for success, helping them make the most of networking opportunities, and showing how to use social capital to take their careers forward and build a full life. 

Reaching out to girls in secondary schools is another big part of what we do. We are partnering with Tech She Can to encourage girls in Year 8 and 9 of high school to consider careers in STEM by bringing them into our tech campus on insights days to show them that representation matters.

I am passionate about diversity. My parents ran an NGO and I started working with people from disadvantaged communities when I was a teenager. It is important that girls who look like me can see me as a role model, so they know that there are exciting career paths in technology that are open to them. This empowers me to do what I do and to help make a change within Barclays.

 

 

An inclusive and motivational culture

When I started working with Barclays, I was a new mother, breastfeeding and struggling with leaving my nine-month-old son to go to work. It took a mindshift for me to understand that I was actually protecting my son’s future and being the best that I could be for him. On a practical level, I put forward the idea of having a space where breastfeeding mothers could express milk as there was none at the time. This was implemented about a year later.  It is important for parents to not feel disadvantaged in the workplace – at Barclays, we are empowered to make suggestions to improve things for everyone. You are encouraged to speak up and use your voice.

My line managers have been largely supportive of me. The leadership at Barclays is invested in making sure everyone can bring their authentic self to work. Working here has never been boring and there have always been challenges that bring out my best.

Looking ahead, the Women in Technology network has a lot of exciting plans for 2023. We are partnering with a Nigerian NGO to equip 25 women to access technology and receive mentoring, which kicks off on International Women’s Day. We’re exposing young girls to coding and headlining the One Tech World virtual conference. It is so important to attract that pipeline of talent and make sure young girls are encouraged to succeed in tech – especially curiosity.

 

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