Sejal Amin, Shutterstock

[00:00:00] Trac Bannon: 

It’s so interesting to me how social media platforms and industry groups can facilitate new friendships and enhance networking. We all hear that it’s possible that when you take a step back, how many relationships have you grown this way? It takes deliberate effort and an openness to reach out to others.

This is how I meant Sejal Amin, the current CTO of Shutterstock. By commenting and contributing to LinkedIn conversations on the importance of value streams for modern software delivery, we followed one another and eventually, agreed to connect. What I didn’t know at the time was that Sejal was an influential member of the Value Stream Management Consortium.

What is a Value Stream? A value stream is a sequence of activities necessary to deliver a product, service, or experience to a customer, whether internal or external. Value streams cut across and connect siloed business capabilities. For those in software design, in the delivery realm, you may see the natural alignment of the concepts with DevSecOps and the ability to deliver value to an end user. This is how I learned to apply Value Streams to software; as an umbrella to DevSecOps flow. 

In October of 2022, the Value Stream Management Consortium held their first conference in Las Vegas. They chose the time and the place carefully to dovetail with the yearly DevOps Enterprise Summit. There were nearly 100 folks gathered to discuss the importance and advance the topic and I happened to walk in the door nearly last. I had taken a wrong turn when I walked into Bally’s Hotel and Convention area. As I walked to the main conference room, I was greeted by multiple folks I had been chatting with on social platforms and even through an occasional Zoom call. 

A fireball of a woman walked up to me and said, “I finally get to meet you, Trac! I’m a fan girl!” I was surprised and warmed by the welcome. Her name was Sejal. We took our seats to kickstart the day’s sessions. As the morning unfolded and the experts shared their topics. I was stunned and excited to find out that Sejal was Sejal Amin, the CTO of Shutterstock, who is leading their adoption of generative artificial intelligence.

We share a love of technology and a love of building teams. We also share another attribute: we have lived our entire lives in the states where we were born. I’m Pennsylvania born and bred. Sejal Amin has lived her entire life in New Jersey. 

Sejal is first generation US born. Her family immigrated to the United States from India during the early 1970s.

[00:02:39] Sejal Amin: 

I’m born and raised in New Jersey. I went to college in New Jersey. I did my MBA in New Jersey, and now I live in New Jersey my whole life now. I’ve traveled a lot, a ton for work, but that’s how it happened.

Yeah. I know. Sometimes people call… what New Jersey is like the armpit of the US, you know?

I’m living within 90 minutes of where I grew up. My parents still live where in the same town that we grew up… not in the same house, but we visit where we grew up often enough. 

[00:03:10] Trac Bannon: 

You are listening to Real Technologists. I’m your host, Trac Bannon, coming to you from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Each week we choose a unique guest behind leading Edge Tech innovation to explore their genuine stories, their true journeys. Technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives. It’s being driven by diverse perspectives and experiences of real humans.

You’re in the right spot to hear about the Real Technologists reshaping our world. Stay tuned for stories that will give you something to noodle on. 

Her high school experience was typical living in Monroe Township, New Jersey. The township is centrally located and is sometimes considered part of the outer ring of suburbs of the New York metropolitan area. 

She was a good student and the expectation was that the next step was college. Sejal applied to only three colleges. That may sound unheard of now with online application process. When she applied, it was a very manual process with multiple page paper forms. She chose in-state colleges, which was very common at the time; the financial penalty of going to another state was often prohibitive. Rutgers would be her collegiate alma mater. She had no idea what she wanted to study, but that didn’t seem to phase her. 

[00:04:39] Sejal Amin: I will admit that when I got to college, I didn’t know what I was gonna do at all my first semester, candidly, I was goofing off and having fun.

[00:04:49] Trac Bannon: 

What happened next is a best case scenario for a student finding their way. She had to sign up for several general education classes, GenEds, Psychology 101, Science 101, Freshman English. It was her second semester that started her down a pathway of being a leading technology driving adoption of Generative AI for Shutterstock.

[00:05:11] Sejal Amin: 

In my second semester I signed up for… I think it was a Pascal programming class. Okay… along with an Economics class. I don’t know that, I don’t know that I love the Pascal programming class… and now mix it with, I’m having a lot of fun and I was also Economics and the Math behind it, I was very good at. 

And so for a year I was like, okay, maybe there’s a thing I can do with this… but I can’t really tell what that thing is yet.

It was right in the late eighties and early nineties and there weren’t very many females in computer science at all.

I remember taking the Pascal class and not liking it very much because… first of all it felt hard and secondly, there were no women in there. So, I had to think really hard that summer about what I was gonna do. 

[00:06:15] Trac Bannon: 

She began to think about skills and degrees that could land a job when she graduated. Though only in her sophomore year, she realized that she was very good with math and that computer science classes were hard but doable. She began doubling up on Comp Sci classes and on Economics classes, a pretty . Powerful mix of skills. Sejal is always one to think ahead and look for complimentary benefits… she landed a job in the computer lab in the days before students had laptops or computers in their dormitories. She was able to make money while getting her homework done. 

Throughout her college experience though, the software development bug never bit, she enjoyed the math and made it through all of her Comp Sci classes. There was a point, however, when she began to doubt and had some troubles. 

[00:07:03] Sejal Amin: 

I had a professor that made a difference, so I remember in my junior year at this point, I’m learning C++. Then I’m in an advanced class and I was struggling with it. I remember going in for help and going to every office hour. And the amount of time he spent with me to ensure I understood what I was doing was incredible.

I was a little bit at that point, I don’t know, it’s somewhat of a, not a breaking point, but a point where I thought, if this is hard, what’s next? And he continued to encourage me. He is like, no, no, no, you can keep going. You’ll get to the end of this class and you’re gonna go on to the next thing. But in the moment, it didn’t feel like that.

[00:07:44] Trac Bannon: 

Her experience with her professor highlights the importance of one patient and guiding voice. Sejal graduated and went on to work for a consulting firm. That firm wanted her to develop and roll out software for researchers. The first six plus weeks of her new job was spent on developer training. She absolutely loved it and quickly found her way to the information management team where she was responsible for providing capabilities, services, and learning materials. 

By chance, one of Sejal’s roles on the team was to receive software from a third party each month, shipped by CD Rom and she installed it each month. The quality of the installs was horrendous causing monthly downtime and frustration. Sejal wound up each month during the troubleshooting, calling the third party vendor, and walking them through the diagnosis and the fix. This saved her time and saved her employer time. 

Insightful and spirited, Sejal was not afraid to advise her boss to push back on the third party company. When her boss mentioned the CEO of the small company was coming for a visit, an opportunity presented itself that Sejal could not resist. 

[00:08:54] Sejal Amin: 

And it wasn’t until I left college and I got my first job as a programmer, and there I was building websites and fixing problems. I’m like, oh, this is fun. I like this.

So it’s now a year in and my boss at the time said, oh, the CEO of the company’s coming out and we’re gonna renew. And I’m like, okay, if you’re gonna renew, you need to make sure you remember the experience we’ve had with the software. Be pushing back, ask for some concession. Because by the way, I’ve been their QA team for a whole year. And so CEO comes and he takes both of us out and he is like, oh, you know, I understand you’ve been noisy and you’re unhappy.

I’m like, let me tell you all the reasons why… these are, these are all the reasons why. I’m like, so these are the things, and you can do better at this. He’s like, okay, you know, I get it. I hear you, I hear you. He goes, we’re gonna fix those things. And then jokingly said, in six months, I’m gonna come back and hire you.

I’m like, yeah, we’ll, we’ll see. 

[00:09:52] Trac Bannon: 

The CEO took Sejal’s suggestions back to his company, applied the changes, improved the quality then came looking for sagel. Six months later, Sejal went to work for the CEO and his startup as a database developer. It was a leading edge work situation. It was the late 1990s, and the startup was based in London. She was working from home. She loved the work and took on a side hustle as an MBA student. 

The startup was eventually acquired by Thompson Scientific, a firm she stayed with for over 17 years. This was the start of her leadership journey. Thompson Scientific grew and morphed into Thompson Reuters, and along the way, Sejal grew and morphed as well. She navigated from role to role and did pretty much every job on the engineering team. 

During the early 2000s, she was leading development teams when it was the norm to toss releases over the wall, so to speak, to the release management team. The inefficiencies of the process were evident, and she said about looking for ways to improve the process. 

[00:10:58] Sejal Amin: 

How am I getting feedback? How am I improving this? How is this gonna work? So I did that for 18 months, it was quite the journey learned a lot. And during that time, product management was becoming a practice. 

[00:11:11] Trac Bannon: 

While in that engineering role, there was a new head of products hired. With her normal curiosity and quest for improvement, she said about getting to know the new head of products and peppered her with questions. For example, how were they learning from the customers on the content and the timing of new releases. What needed to go to market and when. Seeking out these early demand management signals set Sejal apart from others and set her up for dramatic change. A year after the product leader was hired, the CTO of the business unit came to her. He announced he was making leadership changes…

[00:11:47] Sejal Amin: 

You’re the new head of engineering for the entire business unit that I was working for. So I looked at him, I’m like, hey you know that I run the release team right now, right? He’s like, yep, and you’re ready to do this. I went back and forth with him… talk about a show sponsorship.

My first reaction was I said, no… told him I was nervous that I didn’t know how to do the thing. You’re asking me to do a thing and I don’t know how. And he was like, yeah, you know, how, what are you so afraid of if you fail? I fail. Six weeks later, there I was… running that to now ahead of a VP of engineering, of a team of 150 for about of revenue base that was about 150 million.

And that started my leadership journey. 

[00:12:40] Trac Bannon: 

Sejal was the only person on the technology teams who spent time questioning the gray areas and the nuances between product and technology. She could ask the right questions. 

During the coming 17 years, Sejal would continue to grow her leadership and her footprint as the firm continued to grow. She was not content to stay in one business domain taking on life sciences and even corporate tax domains. Each of these areas has a different context impacted by legislation, policy and process. This is where she learned the power and value of surrounding herself with the team of experts. 

[00:13:19] Sejal Amin: 

I did move from domain to domain. Um, so that’s one, and that is where I saw growth of a team of 150 I was running and as I moved from team to team, I grew from a team of 250 to a revenue of, I don’t know, 300 million, and then a team that was 400 and revenue, you know, that was 500 million. Then it was a team of 800 and it was revenue of about 700 million. And eventually, I was one of the three CTOs there, and the first female CTO to sit in an operational role like that 

[00:13:54] Trac Bannon: 

While Thompson Reuters had a woman in the CIO role, it was groundbreaking for Sejal to be the Chief Technology Officer. What was her special sauce that enabled her to change roles so quickly and grow others so rapidly? Her curiosity and sponsorship of others. 

[00:14:11] Sejal Amin: 

The reason that I was able to move and scale is because I was good at better understanding how to operate in the gray between product and technology, right? And really, really creating an environment in which you’re elevating both things and you’re changing the culture such that teams feel as though they’re co-creating solutions together.

I always made sure I surrounded myself and built teams that had the right skills, the right mindsets, different experiences, different capabilities that would act as force multipliers for the organization.

[00:14:51] Trac Bannon: 

Software engineering is a science that includes identifying design patterns and applying lessons learned. For each type of customer and domain, Sejal dove in to understand the customer, the product, and the quality attributes such as scale and performance. In her words, she focused on the engineering patterns first and the business domain second. Each domain had a learning curve and she loved diving in. She eventually found herself dealing with ERPs. ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. These platforms and solution automate business processes and provide insights as well as internal controls. Inputs from many departments, including accounting, manufacturing, supply chain management, sales, marketing, and even human resources are all interconnected in these often large implementations. Sejal was a rockstar in this role because she was able to bridge the large groups of folks and build both internal and external partnerships that were needed to improve the flow of information and the delivery of value.

During her tenure at Thompson Reuters, she also invested in building a close network of women. It was a combination of observation and experience that led her to the conclusion that women are too frequently mentored and too infrequently sponsored. 

[00:16:11] Sejal Amin: 

So women tend to have to prove their technical worth over and over again and 10 times over and over again, right? I don’t know why that is. I think that’s a whole different dynamic that occurs. But I think women tend to have to explain themselves more often than not… or explain, oh, hey, how did she get into that seat in the room… that tends to happen.

I’ve seen that happen… in front of my face that I’m like, okay, I’m calling this out right now. She’s here because of these reasons. 

[00:16:47] Trac Bannon: 

This is one of the reasons she’s a Founding Advisory Board Member of Unveiled. Historically marginalized groups tend to be over mentored, under sponsored. Unveiled Bridges the Gaps to Sponsorship, and is committed to fixing the dynamic by helping underrepresented groups identify and cultivate sponsors for career advancement. Unveiled is motivated by a passion for helping others rise, Unveiled advocates for equitable access to opportunities following research and data to ensure the effectiveness of tangible outcomes.

Her advocacy is a passion area though she is quick to point out a newer and awkward bias she encountered while with Thompson Reuters: relevance bias.

[00:17:31] Sejal Amin: 

If there was a man that came in recently, the perception was where he has more relevant experience from the outside. Really? How did that happen? I don’t think that that’s true, but that tends to be the view because they came from the outside recently

I know this happened a couple years ago where I was in the room citing, citing external research. It was the DORA research… saying, hey, this is what’s going on in the outside world, and as a technology leadership team, we should consider these practices.

These are the things we should be talking about. 

The CTO sitting next to me saying, well, that’s good, but I really wanna hear from him who’s been out there in the industry recently. And so the gentleman sitting next to me has to turn around to the CTO… no, no, no, She’s right… she’s done the research. 

[00:18:22] Trac Bannon: 

2020 started a new era for Sejal Amin. A longtime advocate for external research and external networks, she felt drawn to expanding her impact and helping others. 

[00:18:33] Sejal Amin: 

Covid did a thing to me or for me where I’m like, okay, I’ve been stuck in this rut for a long time. And I have a voice, I have things to say and honestly, that just wasn’t gonna get heard or amplified in the condition I was in. 

So I’m like, hey, I’m gonna change my conditions. And so I did a couple things. I started writing for Tech Forbes, and when I started writing for Tech Forbes, just a few things got noticed by a few influential people… that then opened the door to my new role… that then opened the door to the Value Stream Consortium. 

I’ve learned things over 20 something years. And so I put out into the universe I would love to teach, love to teach an exec education class. 

A week later was put in touch with someone in my network and they were like, hey, look, there’s an open module here. What do you think? And I’m like, hey, how about I taught a class last summer for the NYU exec education program about how to build high performing technology teams. It was so much fun 

[00:19:42] Trac Bannon: 

Since 2020, she has filled her dance card and made not one, but two big career changes. In April of 2021, she became the chief Product Technology Officer for Khoros. That role lasted until September of 2022 when she accepted the role of Chief Technology Officer for Shutterstock. Along the way, she joined the board of directors for Pariveda, foundedUnveiled, and became an advisory council member for the Harvard Business Review. 

She’s also been elevated to being a board director for the Value Stream Management consortium, an industry group founded on Advancing value stream centric ways of working in technology teams to lead higher performing organizations. It is in her role with the Value Stream Management Consortium that I’ve grown to know Sejal. 

Sejal is investing in nurturing the emergent market for Value Stream Management and is leaning in on creating a community. She’s also a member of the highly selective private network called Chief intended to drive more women into positions of power and to keep them there. 

There have been some difficult choices along her journey including an intentional decision to stop being a hands-on technologists. In a field where relevance dominates, why would she make a decision to seemingly distance herself from tech? The truth is that Sejal is every bit as technical as she has ever been with keen insights that come only with experience. 

[00:21:14] Sejal Amin: 

Because as I was growing into bigger roles where I was working, the CTO then said… hey, listen, in order for you to scale, you have to stop doing that. And I’m like, okay. I had gone so far in the people leadership role and leading product and tech partnerships and all those things that are the makeup of a CTO role that I gave it up. However, I stay close to the tech in lots of other ways so that I can engage in the debate and engage in the interesting conversation and air value in different ways. 

[00:21:45] Trac Bannon: 

Sejal not just close to technology, she is front and center in the adoption of Generative AI for Shutterstock. Brokering a partnership with OpenAI and emerging as a leader for ethics in AI.

Shutterstock is a provider of stock photography, stock footage, stock music, and editing tools. It was a natural and necessary step to remain competitive. She has also been driving adoption of value stream mindset, moving from projects to products. In this digital world where software is never really done, it is always being improved, this shift is a cornerstone to being competitive. 

[00:22:25] Sejal Amin: 

This is the best thing ever. I made my way to Shutterstock because last year… again, I put out into the universe that I wanted to find the next thing. And I was tapped on the shoulder by an ex-colleague who is here or was already here for two years and I went through the process and there you go.

So I landed here in September of last year, and we are on the cusp of some pretty amazing things with what’s going on with Generative AI. It’s completely gonna transform our business. And that just being at the heart of that has been so much fun. 

I’m learning all kinds of new technology. And besides just leading the organization, I’m learning so many new things every day and I I love that. Love that. 

[00:23:14] Trac Bannon: 

Sejal is also a proud mom and describes her family as her three special someones. Married for 20 plus years, her first born is a daughter who she describes as officially an adult. Mama-bear nearly bursts as she describes her daughter’s next step… heading off to college, as you guessed it, a computer science and environmental engineering major. Her other baby bear is a 12 year old son who loves life and video gaming. This highlights how she’s always weighed the balance with raising family and career. 

[00:23:48] Sejal Amin: 

So the first job that I described to you that I got it when I was pregnant with the first one and I was really busy…get around town having the second one… It just took, it just, it just took a while.

[00:23:59] Trac Bannon: 

Raising a family, driving adoption of new technology as a CTO and being an adjunct professor at NYU sounds like a lot. It is, she admits she may be a little over capacity right now, but she is loving every minute and shows no sign of slowing down.

[00:24:16] Sejal Amin: 

Learning is what we have to do all day every day. It has to be the fiber of your being from with everything you do, right? whether you’re writing code or you’re leading an organization… with every action, you learn something new.

[00:24:30] Trac Bannon: 

What would this dynamo say to her younger self?

[00:24:34] Sejal Amin: 

I would’ve said to my younger self to be a little more fearless. When I think about the journey I’ve taken, I’m probably the happiest I’ve been now with the combination of things that I do, the network I’ve built. But, you know, I probably could have taken the plunge sooner, and built out that external profile, like this dialogue… I wasn’t doing it two years ago. But I had so much to say.

[00:25:05] Trac Bannon: 

And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Real Technologists. I want to thank my guest, Sejal Amin for sharing her story. Your insights and experiences are truly inspiring. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share them with the audience. This podcast is a Sourced Network production and updates are available weekly on your favorite audio streaming platform. Just search for real technologists and consider subscribing. Special thanks to our executive producer, Mark Miller, for making this show possible. Our editor and sound engineer, Pokie Huang has done an amazing job bringing this story to life. Thank you both. The music for today’s episode was provided by Blue Dot Sessions, and we use Descript for spoken text editing and audacity for the soundscaping. The show distribution platform is provided by CaptivateFM making it easy for our listeners to find and enjoy the show. 

That’s all for today, folks. This is Trac Bannon. Don’t forget to tune in next week for another intriguing episode of Real Technologists and something new to noodle on.

[00:00:00] Trac Bannon:

In our world today, technology plays an increasingly significant role in shaping our lives. The way we communicate, work, and even entertain ourselves is being revolutionized by tech. Behind every innovation, there’s a person, a human being with unique experiences, perspectives and challenges. Understanding what shaped their perspective is a real goal.

From The Sourced Network remote offices in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, welcome to Real Technologists. Each week we explore the genuine stories and true journeys of folks shaping our digital future. How did they navigate this complex world of ours? What challenges did they face? What are the innovative ideas that continue to propel them forward?

Each episode is crafted to broaden your perspective, spark innovation, and help you make better decisions by showcasing the diversity of thought and experiences within the tech industry.

Today, we’ve included some short excerpts to give you a taste of what’s to come.

Let’s start out with Jennifer Leggio, Chief Marketing Officer for Netography and cybersecurity strategist. She’s also luminary for the accountability and responsibility and security marketing. Just who helped her along the way?

[00:01:17] Jennifer Leggio:

” He would push me and say, I see more in you. I see more in you. And so because of that, Cisco wasn’t enough for me anymore, and it wasn’t Cisco. It was the role because it’s such a huge org. My role was very finite there, focusing on security strategy and communications and messaging and such. I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna quit.”

[00:01:41] Trac Bannon:

Caroline Wong, Chief Strategy Officer at Cobalt got her start with eBay as an intern. Her experience and exposure to eBay said in motion a series of domino events transforming her into a leading voice in cybersecurity. Funny to think it all started with dating a Stanford student.

[00:02:02] Caroling Wong:

” For my summer internship between my junior and senior year, I wanted to live at his house with his parents in Silicon Valley and not my house with my parents in San Francisco. And so when I applied to internships that summer, and I must have applied to 50 different internships, I only applied to companies located in Silicon Valley. And I got an internship in IT at eBay.”

[00:02:31] Trac Bannon:

Katy Craig is a cybersecurity expert who has spent her career focused on the US Navy. She’s a retired veteran, educating the next generation of ethical hackers.

[00:02:43] Katy Craig:

” It’s very special to build a ship, to be part of the pre-com crew, to be a quote unquote plank owner is a very special, privilege. I am a plank owner of Bonham Rashard. We went through a lot on that ship. I was there on 9-11 when the planes hit the towers. we deployed early to go hunt for Osama Bin Laden.”

[00:03:06] Trac Bannon:

Lonya Ford grew up on the south side of Chicago and joined the military as a way to put a roof over her head and maybe give her an education. When she started out, she found herself believing that she could not be her authentic self.

[00:03:19] Lonye Forde:

” It was scary joining the military because I was transported to a land where no one spoke like me. No one really looked like me. And so that was, a tough environment for me. And, you know, for a while I think what I started to do was conform a little, right?

[00:03:39] Trac Bannon:

Rosalind Radcliffe is an esteemed IBM fellow driving big blue to drink their own champagne, so to speak, in their adoption of modern software practices and DevSecOps. As a self-proclaimed high school dropout, she is leading the way for the DevOps-ing of IBM’s z/OS.

[00:03:58] Rosalind Radcliffe:

” So I went to school in Wisconsin for two years and then my dad was moving to Florida to teach at the University of Florida via England for a year. And so they sent me to the university and the university said, would you like to show up in August? I said, no, I’m going to England for a year. So let me go to England for a year and I’ll come back and then I’ll go to the university. And so technically I’m a high school dropout.”

[00:04:22] Trac Bannon:

That’s what Real Technologist is all about. I delve into the lives of innovators to discover their journeys, their passions, and their motivations.

This is Trac Bannon, the host and storyteller for the Real Technologist Podcast. I’ve been in the tech industry since the 1990s. Along the way, I’ve worked with scientists, researchers, consultants, educators, military and hardcore technologists driving digital innovation.

I’m an active member in many technical communities ranging from digital transformation to software architecture, to DevSecOps. With a vibrant network of professionals who are constantly monitoring what’s going on, I’ve developed a passion for uncovering unique stories and perspectives.

I believe that behind every technological innovation, there’s a unique individual with a captivating story to tell. Our goal, my goal, is to bring you face-to-face with the real technologists behind the latest tech trends, and to give you a glimpse into their lives, their passions, their motivations.

Real technologists is more than a podcast about diversity. It’s about amplifying the goodness that comes from our diverse spectrum of voices and experiences. It’s about genuine stories, true journeys, our complex world. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast, an entrepreneur, or just curious about the world of technology insights, the interviews are sure to inspire and educate. Consider joining me weekly at Real Technologists. Each episode will leave you with something to noodle on.