How a manager’s bright idea could help clients across Africa
Gloria Musenga has looked for new challenges her whole career. So when she first heard of HATT, she knew she had to present her idea.
For Gloria Musenga, working at Standard Chartered has been not just a job, but a journey of personal growth.
While she candidly shares that she’s not the most outgoing person, during her 17 years at the Bank Gloria has repeatedly stepped out of her comfort zone and learnt new skills.
Now an Operations Manager based in Zambia, she’s worked across multiple roles including billing, customer service, risk management – and more.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that the moment she heard about HATT, she wanted to be involved.
Wearing many HATTs
HATT – Harnessing Africa’s Transformative Talent – is an initiative set up to find and nurture Africa’s most innovative and transformative talent.
Colleagues are invited to propose impactful, equitable and scalable solutions which can make a difference for clients.
About the challenge
90 participants from 12 countries submitted ideas to the most recent challenge. From there, 40 ideas were chosen for a pitch session.
The top 10 attended a boot camp with expert coaching from SC Ventures to fine-tune their proposal before a two-day finale.
Gloria’s idea, developed with her teammate Denwit, won second place.
We sat down with Gloria to learn about what drew her to participate in HATT – and what she learned from the experience.
How did you hear about HATT and why did you decide to participate?
I learned about the HATT Challenge via an internal note someone shared with me. I first registered for another program mentioned in that message. But then I attended the HATT meeting which gave more context on what the challenge was all about and from that moment I wanted to be involved.
The Bank encourages us to think of unique of ways to improve the interactive experience of both staff and clients. I saw this as an opportunity to present an idea I had.
As a person of African descent/nationality, how do you think an initiative like HATT contributes to the success of the Bank?
The success of the Bank largely depends on its ability to understand and appreciate the uniqueness of each market.
I felt and recognised that the Bank was committed to improving client processes by inviting new ideas from people like me. By making sure the challenge was specifically for the African market, it gave us an opportunity to contribute to the greater picture.
It was clear that everyone’s opinion mattered. The Boot Camp was an opportunity to receive coaching and guidance on how to articulate our ideas. We all looked forward to joining the sessions because the coaches applied themselves to us whole-heartedly.
Tell us your biggest takeaway from HATT
You never know until you have tried! I have interacted with many colleagues across Africa and just connecting with them has changed my life for the better.
I now have friends whose advice I can tap into and coaches who I can refer to for a lifetime. These are the great experiences the Bank provides to us!
I encourage others to take part in future challenges.
Gloria’s winning idea
Gloria and Denwit’s winning idea is about automating a chargeback process. It will reduce the number of touchpoints needed in the process to improve efficiency and speed.
As for Gloria herself, she has big plans not only to execute her HATT idea across markets in Africa, but to continue upskilling in people and risk management – as well as taking on mentoring and coaching sessions.