WOMEN IN TECH
Meet Vian, Change Manager, Generalist, and Chaos Sorter
How important is tech for you?
That’s a tricky question. I’m an engineer who believes that tech can facilitate and drive better operations for organizations and improved services for customers. However, I’m not a tech-oriented person, which can be beneficial in my role, as I am more likely to question what happens in a process.
How long have you been working with tech?
Tech has always been part of what I do, from working with quality assurance at a pharma company to becoming an Operations Developer at Stockholm Arlanda Airport for Swedavia. I joined Ductus in 2022, so have been in IT consulting for a while now. I’m part of a newly formed group – Governance & Management – that sits at the crossroads of IT and core business. The team comprises Architects, Change Managers, Project Managers, and the like.
What does a typical day at work involve?
I’m not sure there is one, which is why I love what I do. I have to get close to our clients to understand their processes and services so that we can help to improve them through our solutions. I also support them, driving projects forwards to successful outcomes. This can be more difficult than it sounds. Often, people don’t know the ins and outs of process flows, and it’s up to me to ask the right questions and follow the people involved in them. In that sense, I work with every level of an organization. On behalf of a client, I recently mapped the process flow from the starting point of a customer inquiry through to a resolved situation. I then mapped this to the IT systems and looked at what the future process could look like from both aspects.
What’s most interesting about your job?
I love structure and creating it where it doesn’t exist, whether a process is chaos from the start or seams and looks OK, but a quick scratch of the surface reveals there are improvements to be made. I also enjoy meeting people from across the organization and gathering insights from them that enable us to develop solutions that deliver the best possible outcomes. Often, when I come into a project, the problem that has been defined and the solution prescribed, do not match. It’s up to me to find the answers together with different stakeholders. One key part of this is helping implement organizational change. Technology alone won’t deliver the necessary changes, the people affected by it must embrace it and buy into the benefits it delivers.
What advice would you give to somebody interested in pursuing a career like yours?
Go for it. Dare to try new things. You don’t have to be a specialist to succeed; you can be a generalist like me. And the best way to do that is to welcome new ideas and embrace new opportunities. Take learnings from different people, jobs, and assignments and apply them elsewhere. And always think of the end customer. You also need to take a holistic perspective, understanding what the impacts of change will have on individuals and organizations.
What do you do when you’re not at work?
I’m a mother of three with a hectic social life. I love spending time with family and friends, and I’m also involved in many of the kids’ activities at school. There’s rarely a gap in my calendar, and that’s how I like it.