During Y2K, “I celebrated New Year’s early with my family and then, went in to the office.”
During Y2K, “I celebrated New Year’s early with my family and then, went in to the office.”
Vicki Greenwood served all of her co-op work terms at IBM. In one placement, she recalled, “I had to mount 18" magnetic tapes and punch a card or two whenever the reader chewed them up.”
Post-graduation, Vicki worked at AC Nielsen in Markham, monitoring the effectiveness of retail store marketing campaigns. A member of an IT shop of 50, she was engaged with inputting, processing and designing reports, and programming PC applications. Two years later, in 1988, she followed her cousin to TD Bank and for almost 30 years, she has served in a variety of positions in IT.
Vicki has assumed the role of a fixer in TD Bank’s technology management. On numerous occasions, she has been brought in to turn around projects that were in trouble. From 1988 – 2001, she moved through a succession of roles — not the least of which was motherhood, twice — to arrive as Manager of Wire Payments Systems. “This was a complex, high-profile, multi-year, multi-million dollar project which involved leadership across both business and technology departments, as well as budget planning.”
Vicki would take on a new challenge every two year or three years, and each time, the projects/teams increased in complexity and scope. “I have to be learning because when I’m not learning, I get bored.”
Some of her assignments have included developing the technology for TD’s Web banking registration, deposit account systems, cheque imaging, workflow, and prepaid cards. Recently, she has been modernizing the personal credit platform to make the data available in any medium. “This is ripping apart the applications that adjudicate and fund mortgages, credit cards, and loans.”
Vicki has been called in to the “Command Centre,” TD Bank’s emergency response team, on more than one occasion. For example, she had to monitor and adjust the applications for batch processing and other critical functions during Y2K. “I celebrated New Year’s early with my family and then, went in to the office.”
Committed to promoting women in technology, Vicki has worked to arrange networking and mentorship events, and has served as a mentor for a number of women colleagues. Typically, communication skills are the focus of the discussion. “As technologists we often talk in techno-babble and we need to remember the audience-at-large needs to have the zeros and ones translated to English.”