Susan Doniz always knew she wanted to be in a “very people-oriented” career.

Initially drawn to medicine, Doniz found that in IT, starting with a 17-year stint working her way up the technology ranks at Procter & Gamble before becoming group CIO of Qantas Airways and later joining Boeing, where she currently serves as CIO, data analytics officer, and senior vice president of IT and data analytics.

That success in IT leadership she attributes largely to a strong sense of curiosity cultivated while growing up in Spain and living throughout Latin America.

This alternate advancement path allows Boeing to retain top talent and subject matter experts without the risk of losing them to other corporations in the name of career growth. And in the aerospace industry, subject matter experts are uniquely critical to the success of the business.

“We need experts that are deep experts in AI, data analytics, and cloud. In order to launch things into outer space, and to look at the data that we have coming off from an aircraft — which is literally terabytes of data — you need some pretty heavy-duty technical skills. Those people might not want to be management, and that’s okay,” says Doniz.

The two-career path approach helps Boeing “empower [employees] to do their best work” and contribute to the overall mission of the company while reducing churn, Doniz says.

Keeping up with the pace of technology

In leading Boeing IT and data analytics, Doniz believes translating her love of learning into an organization-wide culture of curiosity is vital for navigating the rapid pace of change in technology — and technology adoption — today. Doniz points to the adoption rates of past technologies, noting how the iPhone was adopted faster than the television, and compares that to current technologies such as generative AI, which was adopted even faster.

“We live in a world full of change,” says Doniz, and that requires technologists to be agile, curious, and life-long learners. “You have to be very adaptable, and pivot very quickly.”

Change isn’t a “one act show,” Doniz adds, emphasizing that those in the IT industry must remain committed to life-long learning, because “you have to constantly be learning new things.”

“I’m constantly reskilling myself and upskilling myself,” she says, “learning about new technologies, working with peers, going to conferences, seeing what people have out there, and being inspired by other businesses and what they’ve done.”

That commitment to life-long learning is an ethos that needs to be encouraged and supported through the entire organization, Doniz says, which means having the right resources in place to support and motivate the natural curiosity of employees.

“We need to provide the means where they can invest, and I’ve never seen a company that allows you to invest so much in learning — you can study anything and Boeing will support you on it,” she says.

That also means giving employees opportunities to gain new experiences on the job by putting engaged and motivated employees into reach roles, which helps grow their skills and confidence, while helping the organization keep pace with technology and skills demand.

“I’m sure you can’t find anybody that has two years of generative AI experience because there’s not a lot of people that have that. So we have to lean forward,” Doniz says. “For people who have shown that they’re curious, and can deliver, and can learn, then we make sure that we’re giving them new opportunities. And I think that’s so important, to take chances and to give people opportunities to show what they can do in new areas of technology, because that’s how you learn — through doing."

Keys for success

For Doniz, the keys to inspiring a workforce is to genuinely care about the individual satisfaction and happiness of each employee, and to be invested in the organization’s overall success as well. 

“I really want people to be successful and so putting people in the middle of everything and understanding what motivates them, and being genuinely curious and genuinely caring, which sometimes means giving them the hard messages, but in a way that is caring, I think is what helps me connect but also to be successful with my teams as well,” she says.

Growing up, Doniz never considered a career in technology and knows that there are many people who feel they “don’t have the skills or grew up in a place where they didn’t have the resources to learn” about technology. But she believes that technology is more than “being curious about how a computer works”; it’s “really about people.” “I would just encourage more people to consider careers in technology, because you can’t be a good technologist without being very interested in every process from finance, to marketing, to manufacturing, and I feel like I’ve been able to almost do every single career because I support technology. And I might not have thought of that as a girl growing up.”