Pursuing Digital Leadership: Q&A with Esther Vonck, Manager IT Delivery, Robeco

We are honoured to be sharing a series of stories from our inspirational RightBrains community! Esther Vonck , Manager IT Delivery at Robeco , recently shared a snapshot of her career journey to date, digital aspirations and how the RightBrains Digital Leadership Programme enriched her career.

Tell us more about your current role?

I have been an IT manager at Robeco for the last 18 months. My team consists of one cloud solution architect and 24 developers. They are working in agile scrum teams, and we have product owners from the business.

Within the IT Delivery department, the Investments Bespoke Solutions (IBS) team develops custom applications to enable our core business processes. 

It’s a pleasure to work in this specific department every day!

Have you always wanted to be in digital technology? What attracted you to the field?

I am really interested in technology and it’s always fascinating to me how fast things change. It creates possibilities for our business to become more distinctive compared to competitors. Besides that, I really like working together with IT specialists because they are smart people and they are always very proud of their own work.

 What is your career goal? What do you hope to achieve?

 For the upcoming years, I am very happy with what I am doing. One of my short-term goals is to have more influence on strategic themes, so I just started with a ‘Improve our current way of working'-project. I am very interested in people's mindsets.

Within 3 years I would like to get a promotion -- and then I would like to explore how it is to be a manager of managers. Now I am the manager of employees, and that’s more on an operational level; I'd like to explore a more tactical and strategic focus on a management level as opposed to working with the teams directly.

How has the RightBrains Digital Leadership Programme enriched your career? Why would you recommend the programme to others?

I have met a lot of smart and ambitious ladies, so I expanded my own network. I also gained knowledge from outside my own area of expertise that can ultimately benefit my organisation. I definitely improved my strategic thinking and we gave a presentation to our MT (our COO was also present), so I had a podium to shine. The feedback was that we inspired the management team!

Why do you think communities with like-minded women like RightBrains are important?

I think we need more women within this wonderful work environment because technology will be more and more important in the upcoming years and diversity must be an important theme within every organisation.

What is your advice to women who are unsure of where to start their digital leadership journey?

Don’t be in doubt, it will enrich your knowledge, your network and your chances on the labour market. I think that in the IT world, it is important to know that it only matters what you say or what you do and not who you are (or if you are male or female). We share a common passion and we speak a common language. I truly believe that sharing these kinds of stories is a good way to inspire others instead of complaining. So hopefully more companies will attract more female (digital) leaders not only because that's a goal itself, but because it will make the organisation's results better and it is a real added value.

Join RightBrains today to connect with other like-minded women in digital technology.