Making technology accessible

Carol joined Barclays as a Programme Manager, and now leads the Group Technology Infrastructure Services (GTIS) Cloud Centre of Excellence team. They provide advice, support, training and documentation for our technology teams using Amazon Web Services to host their Barclays Applications.

A passion for technology

“I’m passionate about technology, but when I joined Barclays I didn’t know what Cloud Hosting or Amazon Web Services were. But I’m a fast learner and Barclays has supported me to learn on the job to the extent that I’m now leading a team that supports a programme that will have a huge impact on the way we do technology in the bank.

“My goal is to enable technology colleagues across Barclays to be able to help themselves and we’re changing our culture towards being truly focused on what our technologists need. We provide user-friendly advice and a place to find answers – we’ve built a portal full of helpful information for Cloud. By transforming Barclays’ infrastructure through providing a self-service cloud hosting platform and by driving adoption of Cloud services, we’re making our colleagues more efficient and more agile.  This drives an improvement to the services we deliver to customers and clients, and therefore delivers significant value to Barclays overall.

Be curious about what is going on around you, even it seems really technical or out of your comfort zone.

Making technology accessible

“With a colleague, I set up our Technology Awareness events, where we bring primary school children into a Barclays office and introduce them to programming using robots. We’re making technology accessible, fun and interesting: I’m keen to show girls that technology is not just a ‘boys’ subject’ and is something they can aspire to. We’ve welcomed over 5,000 children at these events over the years and the feedback we’ve been receiving is incredible – I’m proud to have been a part of this.

“The most important thing I’ve learned is never to be afraid to ask questions. Be curious about what is going on around you, even if it seems really technical or out of your comfort zone. It saddens me to hear anyone (but particularly women) say they don’t ‘get’ technology or it is beyond them. My mother and grandmother were strong women who encouraged me to challenge myself, and I believe we can do anything if we set our minds to it.”