As KeyBank relies more heavily on automation and cloud-based services, Amy Brady knows the bank will need more engineers.
But she also wants more diversity in the engineering group, which has lagged the national average of 8% for Black engineers. To reach her goal, she brought together a group of Black engineers at Key and asked what could be done.
"I said … 'There's nothing average about our team. We're above average in everything we do. We have above-average engineers and we should be better,' " said Brady, chief information officer and executive vice president for operations at the Cleveland-based company.
Brady tackled the gap with the aid of TechReady, an internal program Brady launched several years ago to train back-office employees for technology roles. Nearly half the enrollees in the program are women and minorities.
Within a year, the share of Black engineers had jumped nearly to the national average. Key declined to disclose specific numbers but said it was a "significant increase."
Brady attributed the jump to the TechReady program, which has grown from one class of five people a year to four classes of 15 people a year. Future expansion could bring the program to other areas of Key, such as community banking.
"What we found is we have this pipeline of passionate, excited employees who know our business, who know our clients, who are excited to create solutions with a purpose and come out of the program really, really highly productive," she said.
The training also has helped prepare employees for changes, such as an initiative Brady led last fall to streamline operations for Key's fraud center. The new platform puts information in one place for center representatives, for example, and eases the process for starting claims at Key branches.
"Ultimately, we'd like to have some self-service for the client as well. That's on the road map," Brady said. "There are some pros and cons to that we have to balance."
