60 Seconds with WITS Midwest Speaker — Creamheld Pepito
Creamheld Pepito is the Director of Engineering at Northwestern Mutual. Her session at WITS Midwest is Robotic Process Automation in the Real World — Designing for Success.
Why is speaking at WITS important to you?
As women technologists, it is important for us to lift each other in an environment that’s constantly changing and where we are a minority. We do this by sharing our challenges and successes and learning from each other. A community like WITS provides us a supportive, encouraging and overall positive environment to do just that.
What inspires you?
I work with problems of all kinds every day and the feeling of satisfaction when that problem is solved is what inspires me to solve new problems again and again. I value having people of diverse skills and opinions around me. It creates an environment that’s abundant of ideas and where challenges are overcome in creative ways.
Most useful article you’ve read in the last month
Probably a Harvard Business review article about Org Change and that the secret to leading it is empathy. I’ve been at both ends of organizational changes and the delivery of change is as important if not more than the actual change.
When you were a kid what was your dream job?
I wanted to be a neuro surgeon or a journalist. But I was the eldest of 5 children and I needed to help my parents with the education of my younger siblings. Finishing college as soon as possible and making money to help the family was the top priority. Fortunately, I found a good fit in Computer Science, and although my career has not been the neuro-surgeon or journalist career I had imagined, it has nevertheless been a rewarding one thus far.
Tell us something about your session
I will be talking about RPA or Robotic Process Automation. This is a topic or an initiative in almost all operations areas of most large companies. However, benefits from automations are not automatic. Automations need to be managed to be successful. There are many ways to fall short of what you imagined it would be. There are also long term implications that companies need to be mindful about.
Anything else you would like to share?
I’m really looking forward to this event. I’m looking forward to hearing from other speakers and meeting other women in technology. Various women in my life and career helped me be what and where I am now. I have not given as much of myself to others yet as those women did but I sure hope to in incremental ways. I hope this event brings that kind of spark to women and all attendees in general. The problems of the world will not solve themselves and all of us play a significant role in all possible solutions.
