From FinTech Apps To Workplace Inclusion: How Deutsche Bank Employees Are Making Their #PositiveImpact

Deutsche Bank is all about making a positive impact: for the communities they serve, the businesses they help grow, and for the people whose futures they help plan. As with many in the finance space, their impact is often far-reaching and enabled by new technological or business innovation.

But not every impact can be seen from outside the organization. And many of the best positive impact stories from Deutsche Bank are actually about people changing the company from within.

Here’s a look at how a few Deutsche Bank employees are making their mark.

Fostering Diversity Through Honesty, Visibility, And Awareness

For Sarah, it’s not just being a Director in the fast-paced Fixed Income & Currencies business at Deutsche Bank that motivates her. She’s also a staunch advocate of workplace diversity, and for a variety of reasons.

“As a mother, with a three-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy, I see the effect even things like language have on defining how we think about gender for example,” Sarah explains. “That’s why we need to champion diversity in work, not just as and when, but every day. Working in a place where that’s not only encouraged but expected, that’s what makes an inclusive employer.”

Sarah is involved in the Women’s Network at Deutsche Bank, she’s a mentor to other young women in the finance space, and she’s a part of the maternity buddy system. For her, it’s not just the big initiatives that matter; when it comes to championing gender diversity at work, it’s the little things that make the difference.

“Since joining in 2004, I’ve made it my mission to make even the smallest gestures count. You have to be the change you want to see,” she says.

She’s particularly invested in helping women get interested and involved in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers. Noting the wide gender differences—even from an early age—in the pursuit of further STEM education, Sarah believes that putting successful women from STEM backgrounds in front of the next generation is the first step toward inspiring change.

“For me, change starts with being visible,” Sarah says.

Deutsche Bank is committed to make sure women, from all walks of life, can feel empowered to succeed. Providing equal opportunity is the first step towards making gender equality the norm.

Making Agile Changes—In A Global Organization

Sam is the Global Head of Engagement for Agile Services. It’s her job to help people across the organization to unlock their full working potential through new, more agile ways of working. Sam’s spent her career figuring out how to help people work better and more efficiently through management and organizational change. Sam aims to show people that absolutely nothing is impossible. She’s building communities of colleagues who help each other to achieve their goals and they’re growing every day.

“Agile is really a noun that describes a lot of different ways of working. We try to focus on the word ‘agility.’ Technically that means maximizing value by optimizing flow,” Sam explains.

This means Sam’s team looks for inefficiencies, whether they’re in communication, project planning, or even how programmers work together on a coding project. Something Sam was thrilled to find when she started her new position, though, was that the people at Deutsche Bank weren’t just complying with the changes she and her team proposed. The culture of innovation at Deutsche Bank received Sam’s agile methods with open arms.

“It’s an idea that’s becoming the norm here,” Sam says. “Some of the bank’s leading technology teams such as dbPalace have seen huge improvements since adoption, and it’s not just technology.”

But it’s not just individual employees and teams they’re helping. They’ve also created an “Agility Guild” where Deutsche Bank employees from all functions can share different tips and processes they’ve created to work more efficiently on shared business issues. By training and enabling people to teach others about more agile methods, Sam’s team can spark global change.

“In an organization this size, it’s easy to want change but feel like it’s impossible. We’re tackling the factors that make change feel impossible,” Sam says. “Agile working is now an idea that’s becoming the norm here. More and more teams are embracing techniques that help them work together more effectively and make ideas happen even quicker.”

Implementing A Platform For Thousands Of FinTech App Developers

In the world of FinTech, innovation is the key to a competitive advantage. And one of the most important ways modern banks innovate is through the use of developer communities. Sounds great, right? The problem, however, is speed. Or at least, it used to be, before Dipesh, a technology leader at Deutsche Bank, figured out a solution.

He’s grown a team and developed a platform that means the process of creating and hosting applications at the bank has been reduced from nine months to just 24 hours. From a team of two, Dipesh has opened the door to over 4,000 developers helping to contribute to the platform. And still it keeps growing.  These 4,000 developers are now free to “try, fail, experiment, and innovate” on applications in the Deutsche Bank technology sphere which will ultimately result in more and better offerings for Deutsche Bank’s clients.   

 “We launched in March 2017, and today we have more than 3,500 projects on the platform, covering around 1,000 different applications,” Dipesh explains.

Without a doubt, Dipesh’s project has enabled better collaboration across the bank, allowing tech teams to work together and giving them the power to make change happen.

“Now if someone has an issue, we can point them towards a solution that has already been found, or we give the freedom to fix it or make it better. That’s something I am really proud of.” says Dipesh.

Whether it’s helping 4,000 developers innovate, Deutsche Bank’s global workforce work better, or improving the offering to Deutsche Bank’s clients and customers, people like Dipesh, Sarah, and Sam are just a few of the people making a positive impact—inside and out—at Deutsche Bank.

Want to make your mark on a global finance organization? Check out open opportunities at Deutsche Bank on WayUp!