Women in Tech: a chat with Carolyn Cheng, SVP of Strategic Services for Royal LePage

Editor's note: From Ada Lovelace to the ladies of ENIAC, women have played an important part in driving technology forward. As Women’s History Month winds down, we’re highlighting a handful of women who are making strides, driving change and shaping the future of technology. Today, we hear from Carolyn Cheng, SVP of Strategic Services for Royal LePage, a Google Enterprise customer.  How did you first get involved in technology? I’d say that technology found me. I began my professional life as a management consultant in strategy and operations at Deloitte Consulting, then joined the growth strategy group at Brookfield Real Estate Services to help drive new business opportunities. After a strong growth period for the company, each person from the team took on a strategic role in one of the operating companies - and I joined Royal LePage. I was brought on to develop new products and services for their network of agents (now more than 15,000), and since they’re distributed so widely across North America, many of those products and services had to be delivered over the web. And thus began my journey into the world of technology. Have any mentors or communities been especially instrumental to your interest and success in tech? The Royal LePage culture has played a huge role in driving and developing my career in tech. When I started at the company, the CIO and half of our senior executives were women, so having those positive examples was inspiring. Our culture is also very entrepreneurial, driven in particular by our President, who ensures that employees who show enthusiasm, curiosity and capability are given opportunities to pursue new ideas - even if they’re outside their defined job role. I wasn’t a technologist by trade, for example, but once I’d established my capabilities and strengths, I was given new opportunities that happened to intersect with technology. In general, I think the inquisitive, analytical problem solving skills that are the backbone of strategy are well aligned with developing and delivering services through technology. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in technology since working in the space? For one, it’s now much easier and faster to implement technology projects. A decade ago, we often built our own custom solutions in-house, which meant building the software, installing the hardware and learning by trial and error along the way. These were greater stress-induced days, to say the least. Today, third-party solutions in real estate are far more mature and require much more straightforward configuration. And when we choose to build custom, differentiated solutions, we partner with experienced vendors, use an agile process supported with documentation and, most often, ensure those solutions is cloud-based. On the whole, projects deliver in almost half the time, at a lower cost and with a far higher quality product. What advice do you have for women interested or working in tech today? Technology is such an integral part of the fabric of how work gets done that I think it’s critical for all women to learn about it one way or another. There’s no role that doesn’t touch technology somehow: sales people need CRMs, marketers have to be conversant in SEO, SEM and social media, finance relies on tech-based tools to deliver business intelligence. The choice revolves more around where you want to sit on the spectrum of technology - on one end, purely as an end user, or on the other, as a more technical creator or implementer. But the more you know about technology, the more opportunities you open up for yourself. So, if I had one piece of advice, it’s to learn about technology from a young age, then decide what interests you most and go after it. Technology has a much broader definition and is more accessible than ever before. And from what I’ve experienced myself, women in technology are often very grounded, extraordinarily passionate and want to achieve great things, so you’ll be in good company.