Celebrating Kantata’s Women in Technology: Naz Sarfraz, Senior Customer Success Manager
In honor of International Women’s Day, we are sharing a collection of candid interviews with the women at Kantata from a variety of roles across different teams. Each conversation highlights their impressive achievements and unique experiences in the technology industry and will focus on some of the most inspiring and impactful moments from the interview.
Next up is Naz Sarfraz, Senior Customer Success Manager at Kantata. Naz plays a critical role on the Customer Success Team — working directly with clients on a daily basis to improve their satisfaction and ensure they are getting the greatest value from Kantata.
Q: What has been your favorite project to work on while at Kantata?
I have to say there is not one project I am not passionate about. Even the difficult ones, in every engagement I throw everything at it. I am constantly thinking about how I can improve the client’s experience, their use of our solution, and how to solve a specific problem they are having. The client’s failure to renew or achieve what they want to do is for me a personal failure if I can not come out of the experience and say to myself that I leveraged all the resources available and explored every possibility
My favorite ‘project’ hands down is a client based out of Germany and India. A client since 2014, I took over oversight in 2020. It is wonderful to partner with them as they have scaled from an SME to an Enterprise level organization. Over the years, the client has worked together to deflect internal competitor risk, continued to share their organizational goals and business direction, and work with us to ensure we aligned from a functional perspective. We are in this next phase of how we can support and sustain their requirements as they continue to scale.
Q: What are you most proud of in your time at Kantata?
I am most proud when working in sync with clients and colleagues to achieve a goal or objective. I love even those moments when in the most difficult of circumstances everyone and everything aligns for mutual cooperation, contribution and success. There’s an ergonomics to it, it is the only way I can describe it.
Q: What do you find to be the most exciting part of your role?
Genuinely not knowing what is going to happen each day and the excitement of that next challenge. Also, when a client just mentions in passing how they are getting value from using the solution, no song or dance, just a passing comment, really makes me smile and I get that hit of reward endorphin.
Q: What challenges have there been for women entering the tech industry?
First, an intrinsic bias (held by men and women) that is born out of generational affirmation that women are somehow less technical and less capable unless they exhibit traditionally perceived masculine traits. Second, women not having the platform or visibility to showcase their expertise. And finally, failure to recognize that working in tech is a viable career path for a woman.
Organizations are made up of people and people have biases, undoubtedly gender bias, conscious and unconscious, plays a part. Learnt behaviors also play a part – to avoid awkward or painful situations many of us have internalized this bias and we actively play this out by starting with ‘I’m not that technical…’ A lack of reinforcement and endorsement of women in tech I think has led to women lacking confidence and in turn developing imposter syndrome.
Q: Looking back on your career, what one thing would you have changed in your working environment to break the bias against women in tech?
I would not have leaned into masculine behaviors; at the time I thought it was the only way to be taken seriously.
Learn More
Naz is one of the countless women at Kantata who are doing a tremendous job moving the needle and playing an enormous role in the greater success of the organization. To hear more stories from the women at Kantata, browse the entire series here or check out our most recent posts featuring Emily Smith and Sarah Edwards. To learn more about career opportunities at Kantata, visit this page.