(techno music) >> Narrator: Live from Orlando, Florida. It's the Cube. Covering Grace Hopper's Celebration of Women in Computing. Brought to you by Silicon Angle Media. >> Welcome back to the Cube's coverage of the Grace Hopper Conference here in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. We're joined now by Anjali Menon. She is the VP of Technology at Morgan Stanley. Thanks so much for coming on the show. >> My pleasure to be here. >> So I'd love to just tell our viewers a little about your journey as a woman in technology who now works at an investment bank. >> Yes, absolutely. I think it's a very long journey, if you will. It started when I was seven years old. Back in my school we had an extra curricular computer science course, so I signed up for it. And I remember starting out as, you know, someone who was coding in basic. And, you know, it was just very simple things. You draw a line, draw a kite, watch it move across the screen. It was just so exciting for someone of that age. So, you know, I kept at it. I continued to enroll in the same course over the years. So, middle school, high school and then I did my undergraduate in computer science in engineering. And then in 2011 I graduated from NYU with a Masters in Computer Science. And, you know, Morgan Stanley was one of those companies that had showed up during on campus recruitment. And just the feedback that I had heard from my other peers who were already in the company, just, you know, about the work culture at Morgan Stanley. It was just really, really good. So, you know, I joined Morgan Stanley and right now I'm, you know, Assistant Owner. I own the Equities and Options order entry application. So I'm responsible for, you know, the overall design and development. So it's been a really exciting journey. To, uh, you know, Morgan Stanley, yep. >> So you as a woman in technology and now working in finance. >> Yes. >> I mean these are two very male dominated industries. >> Mm-hmm (affirmative) >> That are come together to provide your jobs. >> Yeah. >> How, what is it like to be a woman on the front lines? >> So, you know it's interesting, I fee like a lot of people have, you know, misconceptions about that. You know, about being a woman in tech. But we have a very diverse and inclusive culture at Morgan Stanley. Like I mentioned, I am Assistant Owner for the Equities and Options Order Entry Application. So, you know, when I'm sitting at a table with senior managers, because I'm the subject matter expertise, expert, it's great to, you know, look at them sit and listen to me talk because, you know, I'm the one who's bringing in the information. So it doesn't really matter if you're a woman or a man. What matters is, are you the one with the expertise? Are you the one with the talent, right? And they're going to sit up and listen to you irrespective of your gender. So, you know, that's just the culture at Morgan Stanley. So, uh, yep. >> So now, talking about the culture. And you are here, obviously, trying to recruit bright, young talent at the Grace Hopper Conference. >> Yes, yes. >> What are you hearing from potential employees? What are they looking for in a company? >> What are we looking for in students, or? >> I'm interested in both what Morgan Stanley wants to see out of perspective candidates. >> Mm-hmm (affirmative) >> But also what you're hearing from the recruits themselves in terms of how they want their job to fit into their lives. >> Absolutely, a lot of, one of the recurring questions that I do get when I'm interviewing students is, you know, how do you maintain the whole work life balance? Like you said, finance and tech. It's a very grueling industry, right? So how do you keep that balance? And what's really wonderful is that, you know, you don't have to sacrifice you personal life, or your passion projects, for your work. Me personally, uh me personally, for the last year I've been taking a lot of extra curricular courses. Non credit courses at NYU in film making and photography. Because that's just my passion project. I love telling stories, and I used to be a writer, and I was just looking to explore other mediums for telling stories. So in the last year, since the summer of 2016, I've been taking courses at NYU and it's just been such a great experience then, and I think Morgan Stanley sort of allows you to have that culture. Right? You have your nine to five job and during those hours you're very focused on what you're doing, but, you know, they do give you time outside of that to just, like, work on your passion projects. And it's great that I can find that balance between the two. >> So Morgan Stanley could be a choice employee, employer for a young woman looking for a work life balance. >> Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. >> And now what are you looking for in a potential recruit? What are you telling the young women here at Grace Hopper? >> We are looking for women who are bright and very confident. I feel like all of the interviews that I've done in the last few days, I've met such wonderful young women. And it's really difficult to choose because everyone has their own area of expertise. And you can tell they're very, very intelligent. They love challenges, right? A lot of the questions that I ask are typically around, like, problem solving, and puzzles. And, it's great to see how they can approach it, and deconstruct it. So, it's been really difficult trying to find, it's been really difficult trying to choose one over the other because everyone is just so equally bright, yeah. >> So, how are you, how are you going about this recruitment process? What are, how are you assembling a diverse team? >> So we've been doing a lot of on the spot quizzes. So like once a day we have two problems that are presented. We have students stopping by and they're working it out. We're helping them through the process of, you know, figuring out the solution. And, you know, anyone who stands out, we're pulling them aside, scheduling interviews with them. We are actually also making offers on the spot as well. >> Oh wow, Okay. >> So, that's, that's been a new experience, so, yeah. It's been, we have a lot of interviews already scheduled as well, so , yeah. >> So when you're, in terms of your job, what are the things you are most excited about that you're working on? In terms of the real technical challenges that you're facing? >> Absolutely, so, I work within the capital market space and wealth management. Our clients are financial advisors, right, so, my job, when I came in three or four years ago, was, I wanted to enhance the order entry experience for the equities and options product. And essentially what we were looking to do was enable the FAs with the tool, that would enable them to do their jobs efficiently and quickly. So the last couple of years, we've been building an equities trading platform that would enable them to do just that. And it's just really exciting to see what the legacy system did and what the new system does and the progress that we've made. And we just hear really good feedback from the field as well. Like, our clients, the FAs, Financial Advisors, who are using the new system. It's great to hear things like, "Oh, I love that I can do my job so quickly. It's just like one or two clicks and I can do so much more than the legacy system.". So it's really exciting. >> So what is the difference there? What are you enabling to happen so much more speedily than happened in the legacy system? >> So, our legacy system was a single order entry application. While the new system allows them to submit multiple orders across securities, across accounts in a single, in a single, operation. So what would have taken, you know, minutes to submit say ten orders, is now just takes a few seconds. So, it's just a faster enhanced order entry experience. And I love that I was a part of that, that journey, yup. >> So, so speed is one thing. What are some other priorities that you have going forward in terms of enhancing the products that you provide to financial advisors? >> Just be able to efficiently, you know, submit orders as well. So with respect to, you know, just submitting multiple orders going across securities. Or even like quickly creating tickets. With the legacy system it was a lot of like form filling. You start, you entered the account, you entered the security and you fill out all the other details. But we've enabled them with quick ways to create tickets. So, in just a few keystrokes, with, like, semantic based entries, they can create like, multiple tickets and submit the orders. So, just being able to efficiently do their job as well was one of the key things that we were looking to deliver. >> And are you focused at all on the user, the sort of the design user experience element too? >> So we do have a dedicated user experience team. But since I started off as a front end developer, I did work very closely with them, to help, like build out that interface. So, yeah, we do have a dedicated team. It was great to actually work with them to help build that out, yup. >> Great. And finally, I just am curious about your thoughts about this Grace Hopper Conference. This is, is this your first time? >> It's my first time at Grace Hopper. >> A newbie here. >> It's been overwhelming. I remember walking in yesterday and I could see a sea of people and it's been wonderful, yeah. >> Great, great. So we'll see you here next year? >> Absolutely. >> Excellent. Well Anjali thank you so much, it's been a pleasure talking to you, having you on the show. >> Thank you. >> I'm Rebecca Knight. We'll have more from the Grace Hopper Conference in just a little bit. (techno music)