Employee Stories

Aleksandra Łączyńska

A career full of changes & unexpected opportunities

Director, Risk Management & Reporting Deputy Head, Chief Data Office

Aleksandra’s career story is full of changes and unexpected opportunities. It’s a great example of how to shift the direction when you feel up to a new challenge and use your transferrable skills to make that possible.

She joined Standard Chartered in 2018, shortly after our hub in Warsaw was established. Over the years, Aleksandra took advantage of the various opportunities to advance in her career and learn new skills – promotions within departments, short-term assignments and cross-functional moves.

She initially worked in a team which focused on transaction monitoring and was responsible for establishing a Quality Control process across almost 50 countries worldwide.

“This was a period of intensive work and interesting challenges. Every day, I was in touch with stakeholders from all over the world. I was learning a lot about the varying regulatory requirements, styles of working, different cultures. At the same time, I witnessed the quick growth and expansion of our Polish office where new centres of excellence were opening. This is when I saw that there were plenty of development opportunities available.”

This stage was followed by a change in Aleksandra’s personal life – she went on maternity leave to focus on her family and a newborn baby. This transformation urged her to take her career into a new direction too. She simply felt it wouldn’t be right to return to the same place, as she wasn’t the same person anymore.

“I explored the internal careers portal and a great opportunity emerged: Head of Second Line Assurance in Poland. That was only a temporary assignment, a maternity cover for 12 months, but still I really enjoyed my time there. It was a unique opportunity to venture into a new area and learn new skills. The team works in similar fashion to Audit – there are planned and focused reviews to identify potential gaps in the processes and controls. It was new, as I’ve never led independent reviews in line with the audit methodology. The most challenging aspect were the discussions with stakeholders about reviews.”

The 12 months went by quickly, filled with new experiences and challenges. When it was time to wrap up the assignment, Aleksandra was ready for her next move.

“Again, I felt it wouldn’t be right to just return to my old position. After all, I’ve gained so much new experience. I reflected on my strengths and areas for further development and looked for an opportunity to make use of the transferrable skills I already had. The operational and compliance risk knowledge, including controls and metrics environment in the Bank, understanding of the Enterprise Risk Management Framework, stakeholder and team management proved especially useful.”

This is how Aleksandra joined the Chief Data Office (CDO) as Director of Risk Management and Reporting. In this role, she supports the CDO, businesses and functions across the Bank in monitoring their data risk.

“When I started my career, I was mostly dealing with compliance and operational risk. Therefore, the pivot to data required a lot of upskilling. I could build on my expertise from the risk area and experience in managing teams as a People Leader, but I needed to specifically focus on the technical training in data to best support my stakeholders.”

Aleksandra emphasises the role of transferrable skills in creating your individual career path.

“Careers today aren’t always linear. It’s important to remain open for new opportunities that may take you to unexpected places. Don’t feel confined to one specific niche. Consider how your unique skillset may be used in other areas and build on the knowledge you already have to take the next step.”