OCTO Technology

As COO at OCTO, Dominique Buinier has a bird’s eye view of the company’s operations and makes sure processes are as efficient as possible. Over the course of her dynamic career, she has witnessed the tech industry evolve from a sexist place in the 90s, to a more inclusive one today. But there is still a long way to go. If she had a magic wand, she’d encourage more young girls to pursue a career in science and technology.For the past four years, my job as COO of OCTO has consisted in improving the efficiency of all our operations, but also making sure that each time we enter into a new growth phase, our processes and systems are able to adapt smoothly to the new challenges ahead.I have a broad overview of our operations, and it’s my job to identify areas that need attention and where our internal process could be improved. For example, up until a few months ago, we were still missing some key analytics about our gender diversity: is our recruiting process inclusive enough, how do we identify bias during job interviews, or how can we make the language on our website less gendered? You can’t begin to solve the problem without measuring it first.<h2>A tribe of tribes</h2>I also make sure that the link between OCTO and Accenture, our parent company, is as fluid as possible. We operate autonomously, but we use a lot of Accenture’s processes and systems, so build and maintain a bridge between this big multinational and our medium-sized, more agile company.&nbsp;That agility is part of our DNA. OCTO is a “tribe of tribes”, which, to quote Simon Sinek, means management sets out the ‘why’ but our teams decide the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. So we trust the different teams to interpret and apply the vision as they see fit.For example, five years ago, some employees decided we needed to become more proficient in blockchain technology. Now we have an entire blockchain team – not because management decided it. The only thing we said was, “as a company, we want to be at the cutting edge of technology”. They filled in the rest.<h2>A more inclusive company culture</h2>At the start of my career at IBM France, I faced a lot of sexism as a young engineer. For example, I remember wearing pants to work and being told to wear a skirt. I don't know if this was just at IBM, or whether it was happening in the whole sector. This was the 90s, after all.&nbsp;Things have definitely improved today. It’s unimaginable that a young woman starting out at a tech company would face that kind of sexism, because the culture has changed, there are more opportunities to speak out against discrimination, and companies need to be politically correct in order to survive.&nbsp;Another important difference is that there were no role models back then, whereas now there are plenty. And as cliché as it sounds, I'm conscious that, as one of the few female COOs in the tech sector in France, I'm also a role model to younger women. It’s sad really, because the need for role models means there is still a problem that needs to be fixed. In France, the STEM sector consists of only 25% women, and even at OCTO I’m one of the only women among the managing directors.<h2>Lack of recruiting: the biggest obstacle</h2>The difficulty of recruiting women in the tech sector is definitely the biggest obstacle we’re facing in terms of diversity. If I had a magic wand, the first thing I would do is change the way we educate girls, especially in high school. All too often, young girls have this idea that, to enter the tech world, you need to be some kind of maths wizard, whereas the truth is you don’t. Let’s be honest, in the IT industry, we’re not putting people on the moon!Then I’d use my second magic wand to improve how our company, and the sector as a whole, thinks about climate change. Reducing our carbon footprint is essential. In the future, I want to build products that are more eco-conscious, and drive positive change in the tech sector, because we owe it to future generations.

“You can’t solve a problem without measuring it first”

Julien Londeix