Meet Lydia Wong.
We spoke with Lydia to learn about her career pathway that led to her current role at Experian, her role as a Senior Program Manager, and how Experian's Agile transformation has impacted her experience.
Tell us your story and career journey that led to your current role.
I started out in Web Development before moving on to hold a myriad of different generalist roles like Account, Product and Project Management roles in the last 10 years. I have a curious mind and enjoy anything unconventional. This has given me the depth and breadth of knowledge and experience to navigate around uncertainties with an open mind. Life is always in a state of flux so being in an Agile space helps me win half the battle.
What is the most exciting part of your role?
Growing and learning with the teams I work with. Opportunities to influence and coach coworkers on possibilities (growth mindset) and as a result, they make small, positive changes, moving closer towards the purpose they identify with. This positive impact to someone is extremely fulfilling.
What makes Experian stand out from other tech companies?
Experian deals with a niche tech solution space that hardly possesses any off-the-shelf buy option in the market. Software is predominantly customized across geographies due to the diverse nature of regulations. This demands our software solutions to be customized for specific markets requiring careful deliberation to arrive at common architecture / frameworks. This is also our USP — to accelerate speed to market. Most of the times, we see that our solutions are demanded at the same timeframe across the globe. Classic example is the growth of Privacy awareness & the nuances it carries to be addressed aggressively across markets with specific sizes to fit. We would like to be Innovators than Inventors — Hence, it is imperative that we creatively collaborate with both tech and data partners to craft the solutions. It is more of an art than science.
How has Experian’s Agile transformation impacted your role and experience?
Understanding the vision and value of why we do what we do and having the creative space to experiment and learn is liberating. This is true in my team where we run 2-week sprints to deliver product increments that we commit to at the start of each sprint. We experienced first-hand how the Agile values and growth mindset have helped the team stay focus and experimentative to deliver quality value. In the process they accumulate knowledge which contributes to their growth, a key factor to staff retention, and hedge against obsoletion, organizationally and individually.
Change management is top-down, bottom up and across the middle to make things happen. I hope this new way of working will continue to proliferate. Moving forward, I expect change to get easier with everyone onboard with a shared understanding and purpose to transform.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
Dare to be vulnerable. We can never be the best but we can always strive to be better than yesterday.
