Pramit experienced the benefits of talent management early in life. As a child growing up in a village in north-eastern India, his grandfather noticed his interest in learning about finance. “It wasn’t a privileged background and we had great respect for the role of money in life,” says Pramit. “My grandfather taught me about accounting, interest accumulation, and how to use money carefully.” These days, Pramit is Head of IT Project Delivery APAC and IT Channels APAC, based in Singapore with global responsibility in Channels ART (Agile Release Train). “Those early experiences awakened my interest in banking, but I was even more fascinated by the combination of finance and technology.”
Melanie’s role also sees her operate at the interface of finance and technology. A Product Manager in the Markets Operational Value Stream (OVS), she has an overarching view of the work of different Product Owners at Julius Baer and ensures the implementation of the overall sales strategy. In her case, the interest in finance took longer to emerge. “Although I studied finance, I initially wasn’t keen on a career in banking and my first roles were in hospitality and management consulting. It was only when I moved to Zurich and saw that banking was the main industry in the city that I decided to take the plunge.” Now she’s passionate about her role. “I was very lucky because the team I joined gave me the space to grow and develop my skills and interests.”
Taking an agile path to career development
Pramit and Melanie were nominated to take part in Julius Baer’s Talent Management programme as Future Agile Specialists, one of various talent pools the bank’s top performers are designated to according to their development potential and readiness to move into a new role in the next one to two years. The programme supports their development through measures such as on-the-job learning, career conversations, a personal development plan (PDP), and enhanced visibility to senior management.
“I was honoured to be nominated for the programme and grateful to Julius Baer and my mentor, Head of IT APAC, for providing the opportunity,” says Pramit. “It shows that if you work hard enough, your efforts will be recognised.” He finds a major benefit of the programme is the exposure to many different areas of the Bank. “When I attend the IT Management Committee meetings, for example, they ask what I think about different topics. It’s empowering to know that, although I’m still young, Julius Baer’s management places trust in me,” he says. “It’s then up to you how you leverage that exposure. You can use it to create a great career path for yourself.”
The Talent Management programme has also given Melanie exposure to a broad network and range of topics: “There is such a wide variety of forums allowing for dynamic exchange of ideas, ranging from the Community of Practice, where Product Managers and Product Owners can share their learnings on common issues, to open discussions with senior management and inspirational talks from external speakers.” Melanie was also given the opportunity to receive coaching from an established lead Product Manager from another OVS. “This was crucial in my transition to the Product Manager role as he was also able to coach me on leadership and how to manage a team.”
Bringing in a mix of talents and interests
One of the ways an organisation can future-proof its business and boost productivity is by having a diverse range of voices at the table. This diversity of talent not only includes gender, ethnicity, or age but extends to abilities, interests, and working styles. When it comes to leadership, there are many different ways to boil an egg, as the saying goes. Melanie and Pramit have each borrowed from their own hobbies and interests to find out what works best for them on their individual paths.
“My personal coach emphasised the need for routine,” says Melanie, “encouraging me to structure my day into different blocks of time to fully optimise the limited hours we have in a day.” Since then, however, and in keeping with the agile way of working, Melanie has learned the power of letting go. A self-confessed ‘foodie’, she draws a comparison between baking and efficiency: “Constantly adding more ingredients does not make for a better cake. Success isn’t about endlessly optimising. You want to deliver quality and that means being precise about what you focus on instead of doing everything.”
Hailing from a region near the Eastern Himalayas, Pramit is a fitness fanatic who enjoys scaling mountains in his free time. He describes himself as an early morning person and starts his day early with a workout in the gym or outdoor training, after which he takes some time to mentally prepare for the day ahead. “If I don’t do that every morning, I don’t have a good feeling about the day,” he says. “This routine gives me motivation and helps me keep a consistent focus.”
Putting people first
Top performance in the workplace often hinges on soft skills, and Pramit and Melanie share a highly people-centric approach. “I like to have lunch and socialise with my colleagues to find out what’s happening in their lives beyond work,” says Pramit. “Each of them has so many interesting stories to share about their time outside the office and that gives me a stronger sense of purpose to care about them.” As a team head, he ensures that all team members receive recognition for their work. “It’s the people working with you who make the difference,” he says. “Our mantra at Julius Baer is ‘client first’, but in a sense you only achieve that if you put your team first too.”
Melanie says that she is grateful for the privilege of collaborating with exceptional colleagues and highlights the remarkable dynamism within the Markets division. “We thrive on an entrepreneurial spirit, which I believe is true of Julius Baer in general. We’re given the space to grow, define what we do, and enact meaningful change.” Despite her initial reservations about the banking sector, she says her commitment to Julius Baer has surpassed that of any previous professional endeavour: “That sense of fun and being challenged by other talented individuals is what drives me when I wake up in the morning.”
Seeing things through from start to finish
Melanie is also motivated by seeing the fruits of her labour pay off. “As a management consultant, I always found it unsettling not to know if my findings yielded results,” she says. “Now, I love the fact that our team has the capability to deliver tangible products or services to our clients, or improvements that bring efficiency to our internal stakeholders.”
This end-to-end collaboration between Product Owners and clients is central to the Agile approach. For Pramit, it’s an extremely empowering way of working: “Agile creates a unique team spirit where people go beyond their job description to support each other with whatever challenges they face in building solutions.” He believes Agile, with its cross-functional and global teams, also creates a culture of integration. “It helps you foster an understanding of the different way people from different cultural backgrounds can contribute to the best of their abilities to create a great product.”
Showing courage to enter uncharted territory
As recognised top performers, Melanie and Pramit have remarkably similar advice for other talents eager to make their mark at the bank. “For me, it’s all about communicating openly and honestly and learning from others without feeling shy about it,” says Melanie. “I don’t come from a banking background and it is amazing to work in a collaborative environment where people with different skill sets can learn from one another.”
Likewise, Pramit says that, when he joined Julius Baer as a business analyst from a background in testing, he needed to seek answers from others. “When I didn’t understand something, I kept knocking on the person’s door and asking them to explain. And that’s been my motto ever since,” he says. “If you show courage, people will support you. Raise your hand.” Drawing on his passion for mountaineering, he says that you shouldn’t be scared to enter uncharted territory: “It may not feel comfortable at first and you may stumble from time to time. But you can only climb bigger and higher mountains if you’ve had the courage to climb smaller ones beforehand and never give up.”