Voice of Experience: Minerva Tantoco, Executive Director, Client Facing Technology, UBS

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“My path could not have been predicted early in my career,” said Minerva Tantoco, Executive Director of Client Facing Technology at UBS. “If I’d known it was just following your interests and passions and just doing them well, I think I’d have had a lot less stress.”

“Just be yourself, and have a sense of humor. Your path is you and what you find interesting.”

Through a career spanning three decades and covering multiple industries, Tantoco has worked on the cutting edge of online advertising, e-commerce, mobile technology, and shifting workflows.

“To be part of generating change and really revolutionizing how we do business every two years, and to be part of the changes that have occurred over the past 30 years – I feel like I’m a part of the history of computing,” she said.

Career in Technology

“I’ve had an interesting path,” Tantoco began. “I started out very interested in physics, math, and medicine. And then in college, I fell in love with mainframes.”

She began writing code in the early ‘80s, she recalled. “It was an unusual activity back then, and eventually I became a sysadmin, working on the VAX mainframe at Vassar, and switched my major to philosophy and cognitive science,” she said, explaining that as a liberal arts school, Vassar didn’t have a computer science degree at the time. “So my early education was focused on artificial intelligence, and designing systems that are smart and can address real world problems.”

While she was a junior in college, Tantoco met three people from Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group who were putting together a start-up that would automate management consulting strategy. “I became one of the first employees at Manageware, and after finishing school I went to work for them full time.”

The company was sold five years later, she continued. “It was a successful start-up and my first work experience – and this was long before the thing to do was develop a dot-com business. It really impacted my view of the world from there on. I’ve been in start-up mode in all of my positions since then. That is, if you come across a problem, you can develop a solution for it.”

Tantoco explained that the experience caused her to develop a lifelong passion for new and emerging technology – “and how they can impact how we do business, customer service, and quality of life.” She developed an interest in electronic publishing, which “morphed” into a start-up within a PR firm. Then she became a VP for a dot-com start-up called Think New Ideas, developing some of the original e-commerce sites, and which led her to do a lot of architecture and design work for e-commerce. Eventually, Tantoco became CTO at Grey Direct Advertising.

“Then mobile came along,” she said. “And it really made me interested in how mobile could improve speed to market and change the way we do business.”

She became a senior product manager at Palm, and then worked with IBM on how to enable enterprise software on Palm devices. “Then I went into the financial services – and I’ve been here since about 2003.”

Her initial role was at Merrill Lynch, creating the first Blackberry apps for investment bankers. She moved to UBS, where she became Chief Architect for Wealth Management Americas, then moved on to the mobile technology group and the architecture strategy group. Still working in mobile, she continued, “I’ve started to loop back around to my artificial intelligence background.”

Tantoco said her proudest achievement so far, besides what she has managed to achieve collaborating with teams, is the two patents she’s been granted in the past two years, dealing with intelligent workflows. “Inventing something and having the recognition that it’s unique and original to the world makes me especially proud.”

Currently, Tantoco says she is focused on developing mobile apps for customers and clients, particularly for the iPad and similar devices. “I think the notion of bring-your-own-device is really interesting, as well as cloud and social technology,” she said. “Technology is such an interesting place to be – it keeps me young!” she said with a laugh.

Changing the Way We Work

One of the most exciting things about current changes in technology, Tantoco says, is that it’s shifting the way we work. “It’s finally the fulfillment of that promise that you can truly be a mobile worker. The ability literally changes the way people work. We’ve completely moved away from the industrial revolution, but a lot of our work structures are built on that.”

She continued, “Now we can collaborate with anyone, anywhere on the planet. You don’t necessarily need a desk or a computer anymore to do your job. That means you can spend more time with your clients, your colleagues, your family. It’s very, very exciting to me.”

“The technologies we’re working on now are really going to change how people think about their jobs and do their jobs. And it’s also changing the notion of work versus personal.”

For instance, Tantoco explained that she is focused on “bring your own device” – using your own mobile device for work, rather than the one your company provides. “It comes down to the differentiation between personal and professional. If you use your own phone, is it a personal device or a work device? And if you work from home, what does that mean?”

She continued, “It’s about private versus public versus corporate. I don’t think we’ve spent enough time thinking about the blurring of these lines, and that also has privacy and security implications.”

“And that makes your relationship to your bank a lot more personal than it has before. It enables a more person-to-person approach.”

Tantoco said she’s also interested in mobile device security, particularly with the rise in mobile banking. “Instead of securing the environment – like at a physical bank – we need to secure each application individually.”

Overcoming Work Life Challenges

“We’ve made many gains in the last 30 years for women in technology,” Tantoco said. “But at the same time, some things have not changed very much. And the statistics on the number of technology degrees – particularly in the US – show that the gender divide has gotten worse,” she continued, pointing out that the number of computer science degrees going to women has decreased since the ‘80s.

One of the challenges for women in the field is work life balance, she said. “The ability to have a family and a very demanding career continues to be more difficult for women than it is for men. There’s a real fall-off of women at a certain level, and it’s precisely the time they start to have families.”

But, she said, “Barriers can certainly be overcome. I feel I certainly have. The year I became CTO at Grey Direct Advertising was also the year my daughter was born. I think I was one of the first-ever pregnant CTOs at the time. And it was an exciting time – Internet advertising was just being born… and so was my daughter!”

New technology also eases the work life challenges many women contend with. “Remote access and mobile enabling technology is very beneficial to women juggling a career and family. It does give flexibility to do their jobs wherever they need to be.”

Advice for Female Technologists

Tantoco urged young women to recognize their own value. “Don’t underestimate your level of competence in your field.”

“In finance and technology, competence wins. They are extremely quantitative industries. Either you know the technology or you don’t. Either you made money or you didn’t. That goes a long way for proving yourself and can give you the confidence you need to succeed.”

That was a lesson she learned from her mentors, she said. “Don’t sell yourself short or feel pressure to be overly humble. If you know it, you know it.”

For women who have reached more senior levels, she continued, it’s important to stay true to yourself and your own values. “Don’t try to fit into some kind of image of how you think you ought to be.”

She continued, “One of the things I try to tell myself every day is to really relax into the role. Understand what’s expected of you and do it in your own voice and your own style.”

Tantoco said she has enjoyed participating in UBS’s women’s network All Bar None – and particularly some of the women’s initiatives spearheaded by Kim Bozzella, the firm’s Group Head of Technologies for the Americas. “The women in technology speaker series is something I found to be tremendously beneficial. I got so much from listening to my peers and doing my own talk.”

In Her Personal Time

Tantoco said she works with an organization called YearUp, which UBS sponsors. “It provides opportunities to underserved people aged 18 to 24 who might not have access to education or jobs. They do training and a six month internship in the financial services, and I have an intern working with me now.”

She continued, “UBS brings interns in from the program who would not have had access otherwise.”

She is also an avid cyclist and enjoys yoga. “I think for women it’s important to stay healthy, if only to maintain your stamina,” she said with a laugh. She recently completed the Montauk Century – a 100 mile ride. Tantoco is also a strong advocate for sports for girls. “It gives you a feeling of accomplishment,” she said.