This post and video are part of a series exploring Leaders in Technology: Women in IT. As we look forward to the upcoming event hosted by our Toronto chapter, Women in Technology: Words into Action, we are pleased to share the insights of Lan Nguyen, Deputy CIO (Retired), City of Toronto.
Lan Nguyen has worked in IT for over 47 years. When Lan Nguyen first started her job at the City of Toronto, she noticed the lack of women in leadership especially in IT. The city of Toronto launched a women in IT network in 2016. There are now over 150 members. It became a network for staff and executives to communicate and engage fellow women in management. Although Lan feels the number of women in IT has increased, there is an absence of women in management.
Lan feels that knowing how to communicate using business language has been a major key to her success. Learning the ins out of using business language has helped her with being seen as an equal partner.
Knowing how to walk the talk and having emotional intelligence creates a high performance team.
Lan believes in a few years women in IT will become the norm.
About Lan Nguyen:
Lan Nguyen is the former (retired) Deputy Chief Information Officer of the City of Toronto. She was responsible for a diversified enterprise portfolio that supported city program operations and service delivery to Toronto citizens and businesses. Her mandate is to create business value through business transformation, IT innovation, resource optimization and to enable city services more accessible and relevant to customers and Toronto public. Lan has accumulated over 40 years of experience spanning a diverse discipline of strategic planning, partnership development, software development, organization development and service transformation in various executive, managerial and consulting roles in both public sector, academic and corporate setting. Prior to joining the City, Lan held the role of Vice President/Chief Information Officer of Innovations and Partnerships at Centennial College where she helped establish a new IT governance in directing IT investment priorities toward student services improvement and academic competitive advantage. She was instrumental in developing many successful Centennial’s strategic partnerships with IT industry which opened many opportunities that enhanced the College’s learning and teaching environment.