Eglė Gudė: In my role I can make a difference

• Title Team manager of Financial Steering Solutions unit, Technology area at SEB Global Services
• Education Bachelor of Economics, Vilnius University
• Personal interests waking up early and hitting the gym

When SEB hired its first virtual employee, AI based service desk agent AIDA, Eglė took the mission to train her so that AIDA could become a reliable automated support tool for employees with all sorts of IT issues. Now Eglė leads a team of IT experts who are tasked with providing financial reporting solutions for the entire SEB group. “I studied economics, but I have made my career in IT. I never regretted this decision,” says Eglė.

• Title Team manager of Financial Steering Solutions unit, Technology area at SEB Global Services
• Education Bachelor of Economics, Vilnius University
• Personal interests waking up early and hitting the gym

When SEB hired its first virtual employee, AI based service desk agent AIDA, Eglė took the mission to train her so that AIDA could become a reliable automated support tool for employees with all sorts of IT issues. Now Eglė leads a team of IT experts who are tasked with providing financial reporting solutions for the entire SEB group. “I studied economics, but I have made my career in IT. I never regretted this decision,” says Eglė.

Tell us about your career in SEB

I started to work for SEB in 2012 as an IT service desk agent. My job was supporting employees with IT-related issues. It was a new area for me and back then I didn’t know much about IT. During the training I wrote down all the IT terms I didn’t understand so I can look them up later. The beginning was tough, but my willingness to learn somehow compensated my lack of knowledge. After a while I realized that I want to become a leader, so I applied for a team leader position. I did my homework and came prepared to the interview, and I was picked for this role. I had 15 people in my team, and I spent three and a half years working together with them. Then the bank decided to start a very exciting project – hire the first virtual employee AIDA and her job was to work as a virtual service desk agent. I became responsible for training and developing AIDA and in three years she became a reliable employee support tool. We automated 15% of all inquiries and now AIDA handles several thousand conversations each week. After these three years I started to miss direct contact with a team, so I applied for an open team manager position and I was selected for my current role.

What are your responsibilities?

The first part of my job is leading my team and helping my team members develop, learn and grow. As managers we have to accept the fact that our team members are not here forever. Our role is to help them grow and move forward. The other half is the IT side. My team is responsible for creating and developing IT solutions for financial reporting. Without us the bank would have trouble knowing how it is doing financially, so our role is quite important.

What do you like best about your job?

One of the reasons why I wanted to be a manager is because in this role you can make a difference in terms of well-being of other people in your work place. If I am successful in improving things, I find it very rewarding.

What are the things that motivate you?

There are a lot of opportunities to grow. I have a lot to learn in my current role, but I know that if I ever want to challenge myself again and go in another area, I will have this opportunity. Our management wants to see people growing and that motivates me. Of course, we have wonderful colleagues and supportive culture. I am never afraid to ask questions, because I know I will not be judged. And as an IT professional, I like to see that SEB is putting a lot of focus on new technologies. We have the latest IT tools at our disposal.

Please share your hobbies with us. What are the things you like to do after work?

I am a morning person. I wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning and before work I go to a gym. If I know I have a tough meeting or some other challenging task later in the day, I like to start the morning with some heavy lifting exercises. I tell myself – if I can lift this, then I will be able to handle everything else today.

I also like to travel and read books, mostly sci-fi. I really like to listen to podcasts about emotional intelligence. It helps me to be better at supporting my team, accept everyone for what they are and build an efficient team where diversity is an important value.