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Can financial services be innovative?

At Barclays we consider ourselves to be a tech company with a very large balance sheet, and invest significantly in the technology that powers every aspect of our operations. From consumer experience to big data, from cyber security to infrastructure, we’re using cutting edge tech and developing innovative and world leading solutions that are redefining the future of finance.

We believe that to build the solutions our customers and clients want our colleagues need to represent the communities we support. That means having a diverse, inclusive and engaged culture in all our teams – to support all our colleagues and also the communities in which we operate.

We spoke with some of our Women in Technology across the UK, USA and India to learn more about their experiences and how they have broken down the misconceptions and ‘myths’ about working in Technology in the Financial Services industry.

Carrie Lewis-Hare, Head of Adoption and Communications, Ruqsana Nuruddin, Solution Design Lead, and Shweta Chawla told us about the misconception that Financial Services can’t offer innovative and interesting technology careers.

“I have had the opportunity to work in a variety of different technology roles since joining Barclays. This was primarily due to three different internal mobility’s, including an international move from Pune to Glasgow.” - Shweta Chawla

Shweta currently works as an Agile and DevOps Transformation Lead for Wealth, driving high productivity in teams through engineering best practices.

“I have been a benefactor of sponsorship from when I was supported to move from an HR Business Partner role, into Technology, an area I wasn’t previously familiar with or had experience." - Carrie Lewis-Hare

Carrie supports Barclays through communications and adoption campaigns to provide new technology for colleagues across the group. Carrie helps to unlock the value of these tools and services, by ensuring colleagues are aware of what technologies are available and how to use them collaboratively.

“I’ve worked in both financial services and technology companies, and from my personal experience, I feel that financial services are on par with any other technology company.” - Ruqsana Nuruddin

Ruqsana leads data and design for Marketing technologies and our connected platforms within Barclays. Ruqsana harnesses data by using new era technology to provide real time, meaningful insights and actions to better serve our customers.