Celebrating Women in Tech

Women in tech – and in a bank. At Deutsche Bank, this combination is increasingly common. We make conscious decisions around how we hire, the opportunities that we offer and how we bring people into positions where they can do their best, personally rewarding work. And we have created strong communities that offer support, exchange and mentoring on all career levels.

Deutsche Bank is on a journey to build a bank that stands for more. A bank that’s embracing change to radically transform our culture and the future of financial services. We’re reimagining the way people work and collaborate through our ongoing agile transformation.

Here’s what that ‘more’ looks like for some of our colleagues.

Gabriela is a Senior IT Treasury Business Analyst at Deutsche Bank’s Technology Centre in Bucharest. What’s unusual about that? She had no technical background when she joined the bank.

Like many women at Deutsche Bank, Gabriela brings a fresh perspective to her job, opening new paths in the exciting world of finance technology – and the fact she didn’t start out in a technical field is one of her strengths.

Going beyond treasury

Gabriela built her career in treasury, developing useful finance industry skills like liquidity management and financial product basics. But she always knew that understanding tech would become key to what treasury does. “What motivated me to join the tech industry was understanding the details of the data and the big picture of how different processes fit together,” Gabriela says. “During interviews with my line manager I realised that not only this is a journey full of challenging and interesting projects, but also a great opportunity to work with the most talented people in the technology industry.”

“Having equal opportunities within a company is very important when choosing a new path,” she says. When she was looking for jobs, Deutsche Bank’s Technology Centre in Bucharest not only stood out because of the opportunity to learn about technology, but also because of the bank’s commitment to create a gender-equitable future in Technology, Data and Innovation.

No background in tech? No problem!

When Gabriela started at Deutsche Bank, she didn’t know anything about software or technology. “I had to learn new technologies from scratch. Every project I’ve worked on used a different programming language like Python or Java. I could learn those by completing trainings that Deutsche Bank offered to anyone interested in growing their technical capabilities.”

One of the things that made a difference to Gabriela was finding what she calls “tech allies”. Across the bank, colleagues stepped up to share their knowledge: “I was lucky to find new allies on every project and get the answers to all the questions I had,” she says.

Ramona is an Agile Coach and Scrum Master Lead at Deutsche Bank’s Technology Centre in Bucharest. As a true agile leader, she’s transforming the bank’s culture to engage and empower people at all levels of the organisation.

Agile means people over process

“I love to work with people and to see them flourish,” Ramona says when asked about her decision to become an Agile Coach for Deutsche Bank. “I have to perform different roles at the same time: I’m a teacher, mentor, adviser and coach.” Armed with all of these different perspectives, she prepares Deutsche Bank and its people for tomorrow.

Ramona is also part of the Group Agile Accelerator that works towards aligning the various agile ways of working at Deutsche Bank: “Our aim is to stop working in silos and start working across teams so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day.”

Jennifer joined Deutsche Bank after over 20 years of self-employment and working for other employers. She enjoys being in a setting with processes around career growth and progression. “I've never been with an employer before who actively discussed or even set clear expectations on what it would take to get promoted or do my job and do it well. Deutsche Bank actively encourages promotion and sets clear expectations in written form on what it's going to take to get to where you want to be.”

Empowered to self-promote

At Deutsche Bank, we explore how we can make a difference in gender equality and equity at every stage. From getting students interested in STEM, to hiring diverse talent and offering interesting career paths, we believe we have a responsibility to increase the level of female technology talent. Our entry level programmes and internships offer a great first look at the bank and how you can lead a successful and satisfying technology career. We look forward to many more people who identify as women to become one of our #ManyFacesofTech.