Women in STEM: Meet Belinda Lofts

In time for International Women's Day, we spoke to Belinda Lofts about her journey to becoming Director of Network Assurance at Optus and how her background in science, technology, engineering and mathematics has helped her get there.

Belinda Lofts has always used her passion for technology to handle high pressure situations.

As a kid, she used her affinity for Nintendo to lead Mario on his quest to rescue Pauline from her primate captor in the 90s. Today, as the Director of Network Assurance here at Optus, she leads and mobilises teams to solve network disruptions, working tirelessly to ensure Australians stay connected 24/7.

This is no simple endeavour, but Belinda’s background in science and technology and well-honed leadership capabilities have made her just the person for the job.

Early days

“My interest in science and technology was sparked early,” says Belinda.

In her young years, if she couldn’t be found delving into books on her favourite topic, Belinda could be hanging out with her sister, scaling the levels of their favourite video games. When she finished school, she followed her passion for science and technology to the University of Technology, Sydney.

“I really took to coding and used my electives to explore paths for the future,” reflects Belinda.

She graduated in 1999 amidst the Y2K buzz. But unlike the anti-climactic bug, Belinda’s career in technology was about to take off!

Women leading the way

Seeing someone tread the path ahead of you can provide invaluable learning and inspiration. For Belinda, this person was the CIO at an apps software company where she worked in her early career. Watching this leader progress made an impact on Belinda, a young woman in a field that had an even lower proportion of females as it does today.

“When I heard her speak at seminars, she spoke with passion and expressed her strategic direction with such clarity. As I watched her progress, I knew she was a great leader. This was confirmed when I ended up reporting directly into her.”

The inspiration and guidance of her former boss empowered Belinda to set her sights on where she wanted to be.

Keeping Australians connected

No one likes a network outage. Whether caused by extreme weather or network congestion, outages mean no gaming, streaming, zooming or social media.

Belinda, who thrives in high-pressure scenarios, coordinates the teams at Optus to restore the service for customers and avoid serious business impacts.

“In operational roles in the tech arena, you are constantly thrown into high-pressure situations and that can result in a large-scale customer impact or serious impact to the organisation. I’m here to lead the team through uncertainty and technical disruptions with the aim of getting the network and business back up and running as soon as possible,” says Belinda.

Predictions for the future

The pace of Belinda’s role can be frantic. The same can be said for the rate of advancements in the tech space.

 “That’s why it’s so important to keep up with those trends,” urges Belinda.

She keeps a close eye on the AI and IoT roadmaps and what the future of 5G and low latency will bring. Low latency enables high volumes of data messages with minimal delay, so this will open up opportunities not only for what customers can access at home (lightning-fast downloads, gaming and streaming) but also at an enterprise level, with driverless cars set to change the future of logistics and robotic surgeries enhancing healthcare for those in remote areas. Society will become reliant on networks in multitudes of new ways, making Belinda’s role even more critical.

Words of wisdom

At each stage of her career, Belinda has pushed beyond the bounds of what she thought was possible… and doesn’t plan to stop now.

“If you constantly push beyond what you thought you were capable, there’s no limit to what you can achieve.”

These are words of wisdom we can all embrace.