Geeta Pyne is a highly experienced Chief Architect and Engineering Leader with about 30 years of industry experience. She has a proven track record of leading digital transformations with next generation architecture strategies to deliver innovative capabilities that drive profitable business outcomes and accelerates SaaS business. A Data Strategy & Enterprise Architecture expert, she has built global high-performance teams, leading to significant improvements in efficiency, cost savings, and new revenue generation. Geeta started her career as a research scientist developing algorithms for Satellite Image Processing and takes pride in holding IP in India’s first parallel computer PARAM and Image Processing system ISROVISION.
Geeta is a trusted advisor to CIOs/CTOs, transformation leader, and change agent with an entrepreneurial mindset with core strengths in enterprise & products architecture, data, AI, and enterprise IT. Additionally, she is an advisor to multiple startups, and is passionate about growing and coaching the next generation of talents. She is also a Board Member/Advisor for several organizations such as Chief Architect Forums & Women in Architecture, SIM, Bay Area, Evanta San Francisco, a Gartner company, Evanta Global CIO, Gartner Peer Insights Ambassador and GTM Capital Advisory Board and to several startups and VCs. She loves to mentor, grow next generation talent, and make a difference especially to young graduates entering the workforce.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with Digital First Magazine, Geeta shared insights on the evolution of enterprise architecture in the next 5-10 years, words of wisdom, the secret mantra behind her success, significant career milestones, future plans, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Geeta. What inspired you to pursue a career in enterprise architecture and technology strategy, and what motivates you to continue in this field?
I started my career in Space Research and worked across several industries, always figuring out new ways of delivering, driving innovations and transformations. I like big hairy problems, I think Big, Bold and challenge all assumptions. While a tech nerd at heart, I also love people, working with people, bringing the best out of people, aligning on a common mission, and driving companywide transformations – this is what excites me and drives me, I excel and where I see enterprise architecture and technology strategy gives me that intersection of driving change, growing people while delivering growth for the company, making impact to the Customers. Chief Architect roles are never easy, it requires a unique mindset, ability to influence without authority, change mindset while continuing to learn and grow, that’s what keeps me motivated to continue in this field.
What do you love the most about your current role?
Driving change in 100+ years old company, bringing people across, inspiring, motivating, mentoring and showing the art of possible. Changes are never easy especially in a large legacy company, challenges bring the best of me, and I love being able to influence, push conventional thinking, helping people finding their purpose and making people fall in love with what they do!
How do you see the field of enterprise architecture evolving in the next 5-10 years, and what skills or competencies will be most important for success?
The field of enterprise architecture is getting more and more an integral part of how we run the business, driving business strategy, understanding the intricacies and dependencies of geo-political influence, resiliency and economic factors will be key for enterprises to thrive in the coming years. The enterprise architects will need to be business savvy, understand key industry trends, double down on critical thinking, be extremely flexible and adaptive, start with first principle thinking, bring innovation in every conversation, reimagine and rethink everything. EA’s must drive skills of the future, architect the organizations, and take central roles of shaping the future. EA’s must be very versatile, besides the core tech technologies like AI and Data, Cloud and Edge, new ways of Compute, Network, Storage, they must pick up skills around responsible policies, ethics, compliance, governance and understand how they come together and last but not the least, sustainability. EAs must drive transformation with architecture for good, good for humanity and establish to get a seat at the table of at World Economic Forums and other venues discussing critical skills and initiatives to make the world a better place. Stay humble, stay hungry!
Can you share your thoughts on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field of enterprise architecture, and how do you promote these values in your work?
Enterprise Architecture is rooted in diversity, diversity of thoughts, diversity of problems, diversity of approaches, there is no one size fits all. Different perspectives matter the most and looking from several angles, and you can’t build an EA team without diversity. For me, it is not about gender, it is about bringing talent from all backgrounds to have a holistic thinking and completeness of vision, including everyone’s opinion, giving a seat at the table. I practice this every day, my team at TIAA and in prior companies, have people from different background, engineering, program management, business analysts, product managers to architects across the stack. What I look for is curiosity, willingness to learn, problem solving attitude, working across the isles, and always looking to bring people together. I encourage everyone to speak up, I create an environment of trust and safety and promote these values leading by examples.
Congratulations on being honored with the AI100 award, Geeta! Your leadership and expertise in enterprise architecture have been an inspiration to many. As someone who has achieved so much in their career, what advice would you give to others looking to follow in your footsteps, and what’s the one thing that’s been key to your success?
Thank you so much for your kind words. My advice to anyone looking to make an impact and establish as enterprise architect, will be to start with foundations, get really good in going deep in certain domains, before going broad. You have to be known for your craft in certain domain, for me it has always been data and integrations. Never stop learning, and embracing different perspectives. Be curious, never say no to an opportunity unless you try, shadow anyone you admire, be in business or tech or sales – there is so much to learn from people that complement you. Surround yourself with people that are smarter, different, who will challenge you, push you – get comfortable being uncomfortable, be open, and always believe in the art of possible. There is no short cut for hard work, put in the effort and do everything with utmost diligence and commitment. For me, my hunger and curiosity, relentless effort in the success of the projects and organizations, and putting team and company first, has been the key to success. For me making a difference, making an impact, driving change and making people smile – yes if I can bring smile to anyone, that makes my Day.
How do you stay current with the latest developments and trends in technology and enterprise architecture?
It is very hard to stay current with so much happening at the speed of light. I follow brilliant minds, that includes startups and establish trend setting companies. Outside work, I am involved with startups and VCs as well as building and contributing to communities to learn, share and grow each other. Communities both inside and outside companies are great sources for me to keep learning. In addition, reading industry journals, attending summits, reading books. I feel every night I sleep, I wake up knowing so little as the world has advanced while I was sleeping ! The more I know, the more I realize how little I know!
Who has been a significant influence or mentor in your career, and how have they helped shape your professional journey?
There have been many people in different stages of my life and career. From my mother who was and still is the biggest inspiration forever to instill the confidence, yes, I can, and I will, making me resilient, helping with grit, perseverance and persistence. I have had managers and business partners who believed in me, who saw in me more than what I thought of me, who threw me in the path of challenging projects, only to make me thrive. This has happened in m y first job at ISRO in India, at Arrow Electronics in New York, and later now with VCs and startups. So many people to name, I don’t want to take one or two, but pretty much anyone I worked with either as a peer, or junior or my manager, somehow or the other they all shaped me to be who I am today.
What has been your most career-defining moment that you are proud of?
Looking back, there are so many moments. I would call out a moment from the first chapter of my career from ISRO. When I was waiting at the ground station to run the software on the first batch of satellite data that was captured on the satellite’s on-board tape recorder, execute my software and being able to see if the algorithm worked, that thrill, that exuberance, that joy, I can’t express in words. Also, the moment I was able to program on India’s first indigenous Parallel Computer, PARAM, with optimized software, and being able to see the parallel data processing with the lights on the PARAM showing the path of compute and processing, wow those were the moments that made it worth being a computer science engineer. Later in my career, as I switched from being the senior most individual contributor to a people leader, and being able to mentor and grow people, getting people motivated and providing with a purpose, that changed everything for me. I can learn tech any day but being able to bring purpose for people, letting them see the light – that’s my career defining moment and I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.
How do you prioritize your well-being and self-care amidst a demanding career?
This is a very hard and tough task and especially in today’s always ON world. Still, I try to keep my physical being well, exercise, walk, and most importantly recharging my inner self. Keeping spirits high and positive energy is critical for me, it is not about how long I work but it is about am I surrounding myself with positivity – negativity drains me, and I try to get out, meet people, walk in nature with my husband, listening to music, watching good movies etc. re-deposit positivity to keep me going. But I still need to do more for taking care of myself so as not to run out of gas.
What are your long-term career aspirations, and how do you see yourself evolving as a leader over the next five years?
I would like to play a bigger and broader role in the world, would be great to be part of cross companies, global initiatives, creating a platform to innovate on common hard topics, and being an influencer in global architecture and technology, teaching and giving back more to the next generations.