I am Shweta Harish, a mid-aged woman with almost two decades of work experience. I have spent 19 years working with Standard Chartered Bank across various functions like Phone banking, Retail banking, SME (Small and Medium Enterprises), Commercial and Corporate Banking, etc. Have handled various roles like customer service, Client Onboarding, KYC, and Integrated Middle Office, etc. Recently, promoted to a new role “Data Analytics Lead” with Standard Chartered Global Business Services wherein handled various projects to improve the capabilities and efficiencies of CCIB clients across SCB Markets. I have done PGDBA in Finance.
Personal level, married for 14 years, having two daughters aged 13 and 7. My daughters are my lifeline, and we love traveling and going shopping together.
Before joining PG Program, I worked as Director – Client Delivery, Integrated Middle Office at CCIB, SCB. In this role, I spearheaded a team of 17 members. The prime responsibility is to ensure smooth client onboarding for different products like CASA, Lending, S2B(Online) platform with minimum TAT and by enhancing client onboarding experience. Additionally, handled maintenance activities like KYC review, Static Data Updation, Signatory addition, and deletion, etc.
The biggest challenge was to analyze the data and interpret the client’s behavior based on past trends. Another challenge was to evaluate the team’s productivity based on past records across various activities being assigned, which include client engagement through meetings and phone calls which is the most tedious task to evaluate.
After starting this program, I started analyzing the data from a different point of view. In the past, data was used only to evaluate target v/s achievement, whereas later on, started evaluating the data by ways of improving the overall performance, by understanding the weak areas and key performance metrics. This helped to take a step ahead and to move from first level management to second level, wherein we can look at the broader aspect of bringing capabilities and optimizing demand and capacity with ease. It brought me visibility to senior management as well as to our Central Analytical Team. During this period, the Analytical team at SCB-Singapore came up with the Machine Learning Program for the employees and got registration for approx 650 employees globally.
Based on my past experience and various updates of the DSBA program on LinkedIn, I was selected as Program Champion and to lead the team of 40 people with 3 Team Leaders for the period of six months. During this program, as champion, I encouraged participants to complete the training, prepare used cases for showcase sessions. There were 50+ used cases submitted across teams. My team had submitted 3 cases, out of which 1 case made it to the finals and was announced as one of the top 3 finalists for Lap 1.
All this encouraged and motivated me to explore and start another stint of a career in the field of Analytics and Machine Learning.
The transition was challenging yet interesting. I had to put in a lot of effort and extra working hours throughout the journey. One side has a work transition, and parallel, doing the DSBA program from Great Lakes was very demanding. I had missed a lot of family functions, get-togethers, etc., to remain focused on my career and course both.
Regular engagement with my Mentor, who helped me perform better day by day at the course, kept me going throughout, which led to timely submission before the deadline, and I could focus during working hours on my official projects and job deliverables.
The curriculum is designed efficiently in a planned manner. I can easily plan for the entire month and do the time management without much effort. Our Mentor ” Mr. Deepak Gupta” is a seasoned and experienced person. He explains the topic in-depth and gives the extra time as and when required. His concepts are very clear, and hence, he is able to answer all the queries instantly.
Felt like a winner after getting into this role. It was something that I earned with relentless efforts and dedication. It’s a new world for me and a 360-degree change of job role. I am learning new things daily and striving to become a pro soon. It seems like the beginning of a journey and a lot more to achieve. My vision is to gain expertise in this role and then will take the next move soon.
My advice to everyone is to remain focused and dedicated throughout the program. Ensure to complete the course work and follow the curriculum strictly. Additionally, keep exploring the learning at your workspace to implement. Implementing the learning on the job will give you the best results in your career, and you can go to the next level soon.
