Rekha Iyer

From childhood, my dad instilled certain principles in me: work is worship, duty is deity. I always go by that. I'm a learner - I don't say I know it all, even though I have these many years of experience. I'm always open to challenges, and my key to success is that I go every day knowing I'm going to learn something new. Keeping that open mind really helps you to learn and grow, and then it doesn't matter what industry you are in. Also, if you make sure that you consider every institution as your own business, you will do what is needed and what is right. Those are the two things that make me successful.

Again, it's my dad. He told me that whatever you do, whether you're educated and doing higher-level positions or doing a white-collar role, make sure that you give your 100% - the results will follow. And never, ever consider a failure. Always consider failure as a stepping stone to success. Even though I've had quite a few pitfalls and challenges being a woman, especially being a woman in technology which is never easy, his advice helped me through. He also always taught me to stand up for yourself - no one is going to be standing up for you - and leave your emotions aside. He gave me some great advice growing up and made me a very strong woman, and I contribute that to my success.

First, don't fully rely on AI - build skills outside of AI. I know the future is going to be AI and it's important, but just like my dad told us to practice handwriting and read newspapers and not just rely on typing when computers were new, there was a reason for that, and it made a huge difference. Similarly now with AI, if you're coming into technology, learn the hard way to code, because even though AI gives you a shortcut, the basic principles will always help. From a personality trait perspective, the situation is still the same - you don't have to be rude to get across your point. If it's a world of men and you're one woman amongst many men, make sure that you are always standing up for yourself and be honest, but at the same time, don't be rude. Try to put across your point in a professional way. You need to learn how to communicate: keep the emotions aside, make your point, and make sure your worth is understood, because the way you communicate makes a huge difference. If you communicate emotionally, it's going to go in a negative way. Don't respond immediately if you think you're emotional - let your emotions settle down and then provide your response. When somebody's being negative, you being negative doesn't help.

I think the biggest challenge is that a lot of organizations rely on third party, so third-party risk and governance is one of the main challenges. Also, AI - we need to be extremely careful with AI, so I'm kind of guardrailing the controls and making sure that even though we are leveraging AI, it's not something that we are just doing without any guardrails. Those two areas I feel are extremely important from this business perspective, and those are the challenges currently.

The most important values for me are honesty, dedication, and kindness - whether it's in my personal family life or professional life. I always treat my employees (I do have quite a few reporting to me) as I would like to be treated. Give respect to earn respect. I think these three things I totally believe in, and I always will. No one can change me, and this is the guidance I would give my future generation too. It's not easy, but if you inculcate it in your daily habits, it's not that difficult. Another thing my dad said from a personality perspective: when one finger is pointing at someone, the other three fingers are pointing at yourself - always remember that. So when you have a problem, don't try to point out one person. Even though it could be their fault, try to figure out what the basic problem was, try to come up with a solution, and then see if you can isolate it.