Meet NTT DATA People
Virginia Duran Gonzalez
Product Manager for Innovation
Virginia is originally from Spain and now works in London, UK in the Innovation team as a Product Manager. She trained as an Architect and transitioned to the world of technology when she created a phone app to help Architects. She ended up at NTT DATA after she entered a startup program and had the opportunity to talk with a member of the jury who explained all the amazing things happening in the company from an innovation standpoint. She still retains an interest in Architecture and is passionate about building design and urban planning. She originally worked at NTT DATA in Madrid from 2014 to 2016 and then joined the London team from 2020.
Constantly searching for new and innovative ways to solve problems.
Tell us about an interesting project.
My job is to create innovative products for clients in areas that aren’t so well defined, and recently I have mainly been working with the retail sector, and in digital workspaces. I run workshops that take all the great ideas the client generates and puts them through a design-thinking process to come up with some pretty cool products.
However, right now I’m involved in a very interesting project that leverages my physical design skills. Taking inspiration from the Innovation Labs, I am designing a space in our London office that performs a number of functions. It showcases our technology and products, is an amazing place for us to meet and spark collaboration and presents a journey that clients can go on when they visit us that uses virtual reality and virtual assistants.
Describe a regular working day.
My role is in product design, which means creating things like user personas and user journeys, among other things. I’ve been in the London office since the start of the pandemic and have mainly worked at home and have meetings virtually when I need to, which doesn’t impact my work, but I am still getting to know the people from the office.
Luckily, even though I work from home, I do get the chance to attend a lot of forums, groups, and organized meetings, to learn about social issues like cultural awareness that I can use in the workplace. This is great for us in London because there are more than 50 countries represented among the people who work here. I guess you could say that we are all different, but curious about each other and want to know more about how to foster a productive and inclusive workplace.
What's great about NTT DATA?
Let me explain this from the perspective that technology is a very human thing, and there needs to be an ongoing discussion among people about how to best use technology. At NTT DATA we are in a very fortunate position because we have created great teams who come together to try and answer the question about how best to use and implement technology.
For me, those teams and the intelligence, knowledge and empathy in the groups all comes together in such an amazing way so that technology can serve us all as well as it can. It really has had a huge impact on creating positive outcomes for society through the products that we create and on me personally in that it has given me a great opportunity to learn and grow.
