Bhavesh
Hello and welcome to Ops Game Changers, the podcast that shines a light on the crucial role operations plays in driving business performance and improving staff and customer experience. My name is Bhavesh. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer here at ActiveOps and I’ll be your host for this episode. In each episode, I try to hone in on one key KPI or challenge that the business has solved, delve into how they went about doing this, and explore the outcomes achieved.
Today we’re talking about leadership and what it takes to lead change and drive transformation across operations. I’m delighted to say my guest today is Sarah Heighton, Head of Finance Shared Services at Absa in South Africa. Sarah last year won the 2025 Executive of the Year Award at the ActiveOps Awards in EMEIA. She has over 25 years’ experience in operational excellence and planning across financial services, including over the last seven years at Absa.
Sarah is going to tell us what leadership means to her, what it means in operations, how she drives change, and her learnings along the way. Before we jump into the topic, let’s welcome Sarah to the podcast. Hey Sarah, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us.
Sarah
Thanks, Bhavesh. Lovely to see you and to speak with you.
Bhavesh
It was last October, we were in London at the Capacity Conference and the awards, and then the Executive of the Year Award came up. You were shortlisted and you were there in person. How did it feel to win?
Sarah
It felt like great recognition to get. I was very excited to win. I’d been nominated before and got pipped to the post, so I was very excited, but also humbled because it wasn’t me putting myself forward; it was my team. They recognized me, my efforts, and my leadership, which made me even more appreciative of the award.
Bhavesh
And when you came back and you’re back in the office, did it have a difference internally? Were people talking about it?
Sarah
Yeah, so we managed to get it mentioned in a couple of different forums. We shared across the different news sites that we have internally within the bank. And then quite a few people reached out to me as well, which was great. So it was nice to be celebrated, I guess.
Bhavesh
It’s fantastic and very well deserved. As you know, the awards go through a stringent judging process. So to come out the top of that is fantastic. Well done again for that. So tell us a little bit about how you ended up in Absa in your role. What’s your journey been like to get to this point?
Sarah
So I’ve been in a number of different roles. Before I came into banking, I started my career working for British Rail before it got privatized. That’s where I cut my teeth as an accountant. I got sponsored for my accountancy qualifications. I then moved into manufacturing and got some really good experience with small teams.
And then in manufacturing, it really helped with the different levels of colleagues that you have in a team. So from the shop floor through to the boardroom, basically. I did quite a long stint working for Carlsberg Breweries in a number of different roles. So I went back to accounting there, and then I got the opportunity to start to lead bigger teams, and that’s where I got my first experience of operational leadership. Very different environment to banking.
I then moved into banking, working for Barclays in 2005, so I’ve been in banking quite a long time now but in different parts. It started in the credit card arm and then moved into a number of different opportunities to lead teams through some significant change, but also to go and experience work in different countries. So I was actually lucky enough to spend a couple of years working with the team that we have in India. I actually worked in India with the operations team there. And then as a result of that, I was asked to come over to South Africa to set up a similar type of financial shared service team. And I was only meant to be here four years, ended up getting offered a role to stay more permanently, which I was very happy to pursue. And I’ve been in South Africa now for 12 years.
Bhavesh
South Africa is a fantastic place to be. I’m sure the weather’s very different to the UK anyway, so that’s a start. You’ve got great experience going through that in different sizes of organization. So what does your team currently do at Absa? What’s your role here at Absa?
Sarah
And so as part of the finance shared services team, we support a number of different functions. A large part of the team does reconciliations across the bank and supports not just in South Africa but our Africa regions. Also accounts payable. I have a finance operations team which covers a number of different activities, such as fixed assets intercompany. I have a change team.
I also have a tax operations team which looks at doing the tax reporting on behalf of clients. So it’s quite broad in terms of what we do.
Bhavesh
So let’s tackle the topic of today: the idea of leading change and leadership effectively. What would you describe as your leadership philosophy? How has that evolved throughout your career?
Sarah
Yeah. So I think, gosh, reflecting back through my career, I feel like I’m very old now. Reflecting back over my career, I think about what I was like at the start as a first-line manager, first-time manager. I feel like my style and approach has transitioned.
Depending on what role I’ve been in, what company, because you’ve got to adapt to those different roles. So I think it’s gone from managing teams to leading. In former years I was learning how to work with the team, how to motivate, engage and develop. That’s where you get your good learnings in terms of what works, what doesn’t, what’s the best way to encourage people, to give feedback. It was in those kinds of things.
And then I was lucky enough that I started with a relatively small team and then moved to leading larger operational teams, where I gained an understanding of how you motivate a team of 50 or a team of 100, and then at one point I had teams of thousands.
So it’s a very different approach because you don’t get to know everybody in such a big team. You have to try and calibrate what you can do and how you work. And then I think as I’ve got older and further into my career, I’ve realized that you transition from managing and keeping on top of things and executing to leading. So setting the vision, thinking about people’s development and colleagues and how they can develop their career, and not just keeping on top of KPIs and how we deliver X, Y, Z. So I think my philosophy has been you’ve got to really understand the needs of the individuals in your team, listen to them, understand their aspirations and ensure that I can provide the relevant support and guidance to help them grow. One, as individuals, but also as the team, and we push in the same direction.
Bhavesh
It’s a really interesting thing that you mentioned there, because obviously the difference between a small team of 20, 50, through to thousands, takes a very different type of approach and leadership. As you’re progressing through your career, do you remember people that you used to work for in terms of other leaders and take inspiration from what other people have either done well or not done well? I guess you learn just as much from your bad leaders as you do your good leaders, right?
Sarah
Yeah, certainly. I’ve had a combination of both. I’ve tried to take the good bits of everybody that I’ve worked with, and everyone’s given you some really good advice or coaching and mentoring. And then where things haven’t really gelled in me and how I would like to be as a leader, I’ve tried not to do what those managers or leaders were doing at the time.
And actually it’s quite good learning, because if you experience working with somebody that doesn’t suit your style, then it helps you develop as well. I’ve worked with some very inspirational leaders throughout my career, and I still refer to them to my team now. In my job now, there’s a number of people that I continue to look up to and follow their lead — not to say their lead, but look at how they’re managing certain situations and how they navigate through change, or what’s the thought process, that kind of thing. So it’s very much shaped how I am and some of my style.
Bhavesh
Absolutely. Maybe we’ll come back on some of those traits that you described. But thinking about traits and behaviors, what do you think, being through the scale that you have, what are the traits or behaviors that most influence team performance? Because that’s ultimately what we’re trying to do, right? We’re trying to lead our team to do the best they can do. What are the things you look out for?
Sarah
So I’m a great believer in treat people how you want to be treated. So for me it’s about treating people with respect.
Being transparent with the team. So share where we want to go. How are we going to get there? What do we need from the team? And then explain. If it’s not going to be an easy journey, you explain that, and you take it step by step together. I think it’s really important to be inclusive. So whether the time it’s getting input cross-functionally across my team.
And I don’t just mean from my leadership, I mean from within the team, because quite often the best ideas are from your team members that are doing work on a daily basis. I think it’s really important to listen to concerns and understand where there might be either a gap in terms of skills where you can fill that with development and support or just a misunderstanding.
So sometimes you think you’re communicating something really clearly, but it’s not being received in the way that you’re expecting. So it’s making sure that people understand where we’re going and reiterating that as you go through a process, a change process or just leading the team. I also think one thing that’s helped me is being accessible. So I’ve always said to anybody that if they want time with me, they want to share an idea, they’ve got a problem, they can reach out to me and we have a discussion, we chat, I support, give them ideas or whatever support they might need.
And sometimes it’s more just am I going in the right direction or I’ve got this idea? What do you think? Sometimes people just want the leaders to know that they exist and that they’re there. So I think that’s really important. I also think being visible is very key.
So I make a point of every day that I’m in the office, I’ll walk the floor. I’ll go and speak to everybody that’s in the office, even if it’s just a quick hello, how are you doing? Don’t underestimate those types of actions, how much it means to people. And so that helps you build up that sort of rapport and being able to work on some of the tough things. When things go a bit pear shaped, you’ve got the team there to support you and we get through those issues.
Bhavesh
I think the point is well made there. It’s about when things don’t go well, right? Because when things are going really well, it’s easy to lead. I mean, it’s never easy to lead, but it’s easier to lead when things are progressing really well, everybody’s moving in the right direction. It’s seldom that simple. It’s when things start going a little bit wrong or when you need to change. Or whether there’s a change program or you’re trying to evolve or change direction or do some sort of a transformation that you’ve probably been through many of those, I would imagine, Sarah, in terms of transformational change.
And you’ve probably had to make the odd tough call or two, I would imagine, throughout that journey, which isn’t popular, probably. You’re not going to make great friends, probably more enemies, and people will be annoyed at you. But throughout all of that, you still have to bring people along the journey, right?
So how have you got examples where you’ve made that tough call and you’ve turned it around and got people back on side?
Sarah
I thought of something that would be quite topical. So obviously we’ve all experienced COVID and that era of working from home and being relatively isolated. And then the thought and coming back into an office environment. So trying to get people to see that as a positive was quite difficult.
Everyone, most people had made arrangements and got used to being at home, myself included. So then to speak to the team and say, well, we made a joint decision as leadership that we would like to start going back into the office. There was a lot of pushback, a lot of unhappiness around it, which I completely understand because you’ve been used to working for like two years in a different environment. You’ve been in a bubble.
There’s obviously concerns around, am I going to still get ill and what’s the protocols and the offer, all those kind of things as you go through. And I’m sure a lot of people listening to the podcast have gone through something similar.
Sarah
And then, the one thing that we did was do it gradually. So I think, one day a week, come in, and then we then had, we’ll bring you in two, we’ll start to come in two days a week, which actually didn’t, which was worse than going for one day, but anyway. And then we built on to go to three.
And the difficult part was, and we made this as a joint decision, is that the broader team that we’re part of, we all did that, but then there were other parts of the organization that weren’t necessarily doing that at that time. I mean, now it’s very different. We’ve got a large part of the organization back in the office about three days a week.
But when you’re the first and you’re going through that, you get a lot, why are we doing this? What does it mean? And all these kind of things. So one of the things that I did to try and get the team on side was I set up what I called a flexible working forum.
Because there was a lot of confusion about, well, what’s sixty percent, what’s three days, what does it mean? And do I have to sit with the team and why are we coming in? So I said I also wanted volunteers to be part of a flexible working forum, and that was whatever level. So it could be the most junior to the most senior within my team. There were about thirty-five people in this working group, and we would meet in the room.
There was no hierarchy. So everybody had an equal voice, and everybody could co-create the flexible working guidelines together. And they were tasked to go back to the teams to say, well, what are the issues? How can we help support? What can we do to make things easier? Got the feedback, and then the team themselves put together some guidelines, which then they became the ambassadors and fed that back and supported the team.
I mean, it still took a while for everyone to get on board, but by involving a cross-functional section of my broader team to come up with solutions, to come up with a support network, I think that really helped. And it really helped people continue to come to work into the office, be valuable contributors, start collaborating, starting to see that by coming in you can solve issues, even minor issues, quite quickly.
They could see that it was fair across everyone, everyone was having the say, was treated in the same way. So leaders weren’t just coming in one day and everyone else three, so everybody had the same expectation. And I think that really helped land that. And in the same year we then did our colleague experience survey and that did not impact my results. So it felt that they were still engaged, even though they were going through quite difficult change for them personally.
Bhavesh
I’ve got to tell you this story actually. So my daughter just graduated and got herself a job, right? So she’s saying to me, Dad, you’re not going to believe this, right? So I have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, I have to drive to the office and I have to be there for nine o’clock and I’ve got to be there till five o’clock. And by the time I get home, it’s like seven o’clock that I have dinner and I’m so tired, I’m exhausted. Then I’ve got to do it again and I’ve got to do that every single day.
Five days a week. And I just giggled. I thought, my God, we used to do that every single day for year upon year upon year. Before the pandemic. And I was like, just wait. It’s amazing what you get used to. It’s amazing. But it’s funny. It did make me laugh, I must admit.
So thinking about the kind of, I guess where we are today in a lot of change, a lot of leadership programs now, I guess back in the day we didn’t have as much data as perhaps we have these days. And obviously that, being able to drive decisions using the data you have. And it has always the instinct versus experience and then using data more effectively. How have you evolved in using data as part of your experience to drive decision making or support the team in their decision making?
Sarah
Yeah, so I think for me, data is only as good as the quality of it, right? And then you’ve got to be able to interpret what it’s telling you. So I think for me it’s looking at the trends and insights that data can give you, coupled with what you know, what we know about the operation that you’re dealing with. So a good example would be the data I get from the capacity management tool, for example. I can see that there’s peaks and troughs, or I can see that there are some teams that are doing longer hours than I would expect. And it’s about, well, is that right?
What do we do about that information? And then I can also see where we might have some spare capacity. But I don’t just go on what the data is telling me there and the graphs or whatever, which is all very helpful. I then use that to have a conversation with the leaders within the team. And it helps then drive the right decisions around what we should be doing.
And whether we need to focus in one area. So for example, do we need more support in one area compared to another? How do we do that? Can that be done by some quick multi-skilling or lending and borrowing and those kind of things? So it helps with that kind of discussion. If I’m looking into data that we get, because of the nature of my team, we do have lots of data at our fingertips. So we can get some insights.
We’ve managed to put some very good management information together, which has shown things like travel behavior, for example, because I’ve got the travel team in my space. So I can see which months are peak months for travel. Or I can see, are we using a particular airline, and then that helps us then go, well, okay, we need to focus on this particular airline to go, well, can we get a better deal? Can we get a better price? Those types of things. So I think data’s got many uses. I do think that experience also assists you in understanding that data and whether it is giving you the right view, I guess. I don’t think they just rely on it on its own.
Bhavesh
No, I agree. I agree. I think it’s a combination. And I think one of the other things that’s really interesting is making a lot of, potentially some organizations don’t want to share that, say, performance data to the individual, right? Whereas we certainly at ActiveOps are believers that that really empowers the individual, right? ‘Cause they understand where they create and what they do. Once you’re only on the individuals themselves and giving them that data can make them make decisions.
Sarah
Yeah, so all my team have access to any of their performance data. And it’s used on a regular, it’s used on a daily basis. Where I do try and assist is to guide, well, what should you be focusing on in that data set? But all of my team have access to whatever sort of tool set we have out there to help them, one, with their individual performance, and it helps them understand where they might have gaps or where they can help support team members and things like that. So yeah.
But I mean, I don’t like to do too many things behind closed doors. I think it’s better to be out there, be transparent and share input because that information’s there for the team as well as for the leadership, right?
Bhavesh
Of course, of course. I think that’s the key, isn’t it? It’s not about using the data as a stick. It’s more using the data as the encouragement, right? What you can do. And I guess that’s where the leadership skill comes in. That’s where you drive that. I mean, you talked a little bit earlier on about when you’re creating the little group of about thirty-five people between different levels for the going from hybrid and coming back into the office.
What other kind of systems or kind of rules or tips of the trade do you have that you kind of have in your locker that you use when you’re trying to keep the teams motivated and perhaps involved?
Sarah
I’ll be giving all my secrets away here, Bhavesh. Look, I think for me, some of it all depends on your own leadership style, right? So of how you engage with the team. But there’s a few things that I like to focus on. So one is having smaller engagements with colleagues. So I have focus groups with them and get feedback in terms of how things are working. Is there anything concerning them? Do they want to ask me questions?
Sometimes I set them a task to do in that focus group as well. So then that sort of breaks the ice a little bit for them. So we will do some sort of whiteboarding or something like that. I make sure that I engage with all of the team via having town halls, or I call them izinhlangano, which is a word that means gathering. And that’s where we’ll share strategy, where we’re going, our results.
But that town hall used to be run by me, but now I participate, but it is actually owned by the team. So there’s a team of colleagues that put together the agenda, put together all the material and run the actual town hall, which I think is great. It’s really good that they get involved in and own that type of communication.
I also have, I mean, we’re not all here to, it’d be really dull if we’re just working all the time, right? I’m not saying we’re like feet on the table or anything, but I think you need to have a bit of fun while you’re in the office. So I have a number of colleague work streams. So this is where either I get feedback to say something’s not working or somebody’s got an idea, but also just to keep a bit of motivation going within the team.
So I tend to have four work streams, the ones around colleague development. So looking at how colleagues can help colleagues develop. So doing lunch and learns or doing a power session on Excel, someone’s like an SME on Excel and stuff like that. Plus also having development programs. So for a few years we had something called the youth program where we had all our under 35s going through a development program and they connected. So that was really great energy. And then I have a fun stream, which looks at how do you keep motivated at work and do bits of competition or just recognize if it’s a holiday, like Easter coming up, we’ll link into those types of things.
Have a wellness stream, which I think is really important to think about. One, the health of individuals, but what support is out there for colleagues? I mean, a lot of my team have got extended families. They’ve got people that are going through certain illnesses or may need support. So we kind of share what support is out there for colleagues. And that goes from financial wellness to health as well. I then have linked, I have a CSI stream, which is giving back, so community.
Bhavesh
Yeah, completely.
Sarah
Community initiatives, which the team sort of links in with the firm. And then we also do have a separate recognition stream. So that is encouraging colleagues and leaders to recognize when somebody’s done a good job, calling it out, and then we do at the end of the year, we give out some prizes and recognition for that. We’ve done some good stuff.
And I think that really helps the team get keep motivated.
Bhavesh
And Sarah, in terms of the owners of those streams, who owns that? Do you have your team members and your colleagues that are owning it? Or do you have to drive it to start with?
Sarah
No, no, no. No, I don’t drive it. So I’ll either have one of my more senior leaders either be like the coach or the lead and then we have the team volunteer to lead. Because I think it needs to come from the team. I can’t drive everything. It’s not my role to drive everything. And my idea of having fun is very different to one of my youngest members of the team, who’s twenty, idea of fun. So we do have quite a mixture. I think in my team at the moment I’ve got four generations. So it’s quite interesting to see that mix as well.
Bhavesh
I’m sure we could have a podcast just on the difference between the generations. Yes, we really could. It’s very different. Yeah.
Sarah
Yeah. And then I suppose one thing I have started to introduce a couple of years ago was I mean, I’ve always had process improvements or focus, like smaller projects where different members of the team develop or lead something. But where they’ve accomplished the change. So for example, they put in a little bit of robotics or something to improve a process.
I’ve then done what I call show and tell sessions with the senior leadership. So like my boss and my boss’s boss. And that has gone down really well with the team in terms of one, they’re getting exposure with some very senior leaders and they understand what they’re doing. But also the senior leaders are getting excited about what the team can do and their innovation and that kind of stuff. So that’s kind of building a little bit of traction now.
And one of the things that we’ve done this year, which I’m very excited about and hoping that we can sort of push it forward a bit more as I’ve done it more as a proof of concept, is an innovation program where individuals had to apply to be in it and then they had to come with an idea of how they could use something like Microsoft Copilot or something like that to help improve a task.
So we had quite a lot of people apply for that. We went through a process. We’ve got 30 individuals in this innovation program. And they’ve had intensive training on what does AI mean, what does Copilot and what can Copilot do and some other tools. And just this week we had a playback from a hackathon that they’ve done. They were in groups, so they had five teams and they all fed back their idea on what they would do and how they would use Microsoft Copilot or AI and how they do that in a responsible way. It blew me away. That was great. And that is another way of recognizing people and getting people motivated and excited.
Bhavesh
I mean with those, I bet you got so many cool ideas, by the way, during that process. Is the idea to then pick some of those and deploy them? Yeah.
Sarah
Yeah. So we had a panel who was judging. I somehow ended up on that panel. I thought I just was going to watch, but then I ended up on the panel judging. So yeah, we’ve just got to pool our results and we’ve got a first, second, and third. And the idea is to use those inputs to say, well, what can we actually put into place and start to utilize.
I didn’t want it to be a program where you come up with an idea, you go, that’s great, and then you forget about it. For me, this is something that’s got to be actually tangible that you can implement in the team and can grow or you can use it elsewhere. So you’ve got that kind of, I suppose, your investment’s growing, isn’t it, in that sense.
Bhavesh
Yeah, and it shows a lot. I think if you’re a strong leader in your organization, then your teams will want to participate in these kind of things. It’s quite an indicator if you’re not a great leader, people won’t want to engage. And then it will also tell you. So yeah, some great tips there, great ideas that you’re showing. You’re giving us all your secrets there, Sarah.
Sarah
I’ve still got some hidden.
Bhavesh
When we think about, I mean, when you think about your leadership style and throughout our careers we’ve all been given feedback, changed the way we lead or changed our approach in a way, and it’s never easy putting a mirror in front of you and then trying to figure out how to improve. Have you got examples of that where you’ve been given feedback and you thought, Okay, I’m going to change the way I think about things.
Sarah
Yeah, so quite often I was getting feedback around, probably earlier in my career, around how I communicated and that I was quite direct and blunt and that I needed to tailor my style according to my audience, which I’ve taken on board and I do that.
Some of it’s my personality, right? So you’re not going to be able to change it. It’s being aware of the fact. But I also picked up that it’s really good to have a number of different stakeholders that you can bounce ideas off or you can work with. And that was a really good bit of advice that I got. That helped me and it really helped me grow my career, but also helped me with my leadership. So one of my mentors actually shared with me said, well, where do you want to go? And who do you think are those people that are going to help you get there? And let’s write the names down and see what you can do to get on their radar. And I did some of that and it really helped me.
That’s how I ended up getting to the opportunity to go work in India because I purposely made sure that I did actually I did work that would get in front of certain leaders that would be able to say, well, that they’ve got the right skills to be able to do this and there’s that trust and credibility in yourself. So that was a really good bit of advice.
Bhavesh
That is a cracking piece of advice, by the way. The amount of people that don’t even think about that, it’s great. That’s a really good one. In terms of, I’m curious. Obviously, we talked at the start of the podcast of your award nomination that was by your team. What would they say would be your superpower, Sarah? How would they describe Sarah?
Sarah
That feels like a quite embarrassing question. I think they would say that I was genuine and supportive as a person and fun. So I’m always the first on the dance floor for a year-end party or whatever. So they’d like that, I guess. Quite outgoing, I guess.
I think they would say something around that I do focus on their growth and development. So I take that seriously.
Bhavesh
Well, I think that’s come across loud and clear though. And it’s clear that you’re passionate about the teams that you have and making sure they’re developing and their path. I was always told, and something that’s stuck with me, is that my role within a team is to help my team move on to their next gig. And that’s what I should be focusing on and helping them to do that. And it’s funny how many managers I’ve worked for don’t think that way, but it’s something that’s stuck with me. That’s a really important thing to do. And particularly now, right?
Particularly as you said, you’ve got four generations. The world of work is going to be very, very different when we think about the next ten years, right? What’s going to happen? They’re going to need as much support and help through that path as they can.
I mean, in terms of that future world of work, right? I mean, operations, the future of it, AI is if it’s not coming, it’s already here. It’s going to get more and more prevalent and leveraged across organizations. What do you think, when you think about the next journey that you’re on and the next evolution of operational leadership, what do you think the biggest challenges are going to be?
Sarah
I think it’s ensuring that you’ve got people with the right skills and mindset for the new technologies that are likely to come. And that understanding that the pace is quite fast. It was quite interesting that in one of my management meetings, one of my team mentioned something like it’s almost like a tidal wave, like a tsunami coming of change.
Because you think, it’s taken this long to develop. But then when you start looking at all the new technologies we have now, things are changing on a daily basis, right? If not hourly in some tech. So it’s one, getting people skilled and ready for that pace of change and recognizing that it’s going to happen and have the skill set to be able to deal with it.
So I think that’s my job really. And that’s why I’ve put in some of the interventions that I’ve I was just talking about to be able to support the team with some of the change that’s coming. I think also operations is still going to be there, but it’s not going to be big teams, right? It’s going to be more exception management insights, data insights. How do we do things faster and better using the technology?
So it’s a very different skill set to a process of going, well, move this to here, to here, and tick it off. And I do think that there’s a lot of investment required, and that’s what I focus on a lot now, is how do I get everyone to understand that you need to develop these skill sets, even myself, because for me to understand how to support people.
I need to understand that even if I don’t sort of actively use it all the time, I’ve still got to understand what it does and to be able to get people to really think, well, your career’s going to change. And if you’re not going to help upskill or participate in some of the activities that are around here to support you, you’re not necessarily going to have a role five, ten years down the line. And I’m not that blunt.
But that’s the situation, right? And I want to make sure I’m upskilling and people have got the best opportunities that they can have. So I think that’s my role.
Bhavesh
And I think that’s a very valid observation and very forward-looking because that is the reality, right? I mean, the step changes that you’re seeing in AI capability. I mean, we would just be dreaming of that five years ago to think about it now. And I was talking to somebody about this just the other day and we discussed that we’ve kind of lived through, I remember the first PC when I was at university and I had to go to the library to do my assignment.
And then we bought one at home as a Dell PC. And then we had the mobile phones. Then we had the dot-com and the internet. Then we had the smartphone. And all of those things have changed culture, changed people, and revolutionized social media. And I think AI is going to be probably the biggest one of the lot. It’s going to truly transform the way we think about stuff.
So it seems like you are forward thinking. And do you see that as an Absa thing, or generally yourself really pushing that agenda?
Sarah
A combination of, so I think it’s the team I’m part of, but it’s also the nature of banking is getting more digitized. I mean, it’s the same in the UK, right? You do most things on your phone. I can’t remember the last time I went to the branch, right? As you said, the phone is like, if you lose your phone, you get into a panic.
Bhavesh
It’s like your own superpower.
Sarah
Yeah, exactly. So I think because of that, we’re naturally thinking about the future, but I think it’s also a case of I work for a leader that does that as well. So that’s pushed me and then it pushes me to think about the team and how they develop as well. I think something about South Africa and the employment levels are very different. Dynamic to some of the other parts of the world as well. So I think you’ve got to be consciously thinking about that as well and what that might mean to the economy and things like that. Yeah.
Bhavesh
So to kind of wrap things up a little bit, Sarah, what would your one piece of advice be to budding leaders coming up the rails, the younger generation becoming leaders, what would you say?
Sarah
Good luck.
No, seriously. I think it’s just try something. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Don’t worry about asking somebody advice of what to do. Think about what you enjoy doing and focus on that. And don’t always focus on what you’re not so good at, because actually I’m a believer of you need to put the power in the strengths that you have and utilize those rather than spending all your energy trying to resolve something that you’re not really going to be able to change too much and isn’t going to help you in your career. So there’s that, but it’s also information helps you develop your thought processes. So the more you read about different ways of doing
things to try and upskill yourself, but also spend a bit of time reflecting on what you’ve done today that you could do differently tomorrow. I think that’s very powerful because then it’s those small things that you can change that then becomes a big change.
Bhavesh
That is a great bit of advice. Sarah, thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for joining us on the Ops Game Changer podcast. I’m convinced that there are so many leaders that’ll be listening to what you’re describing today and share similar challenges, have different teams. And I think you’ve provided so much insight into how you do it and the experience that you’ve got. So thank you so much.
Thank you very much to our listeners for joining us and please do check in for more episodes of Ops Game Changers. You’re going to hear so many more fascinating insights from other leaders like Sarah in the field of operations about how they have overcome challenges and drive productivity, boost up performance at their enterprises. So thank you for now and goodbye.
