Women in STEM: Meet Theresa Eyssens

In time for International Women’s Day, we chatted to Theresa Eyssens about her experiences on the way to becoming the Vice President of Customer Solutions and Cloud at Optus and how her background in science, technology and mathematics has empowered her.

Theresa Eyssens has always been a problem solver. It comes with the territory when you’re the eldest of seven siblings. As a keen mathematician and avid coder, a young Theresa would soon embark on a career in creating solutions and later become the VP of Customer Solutions and Cloud at Optus.

Early days

It was in Year 10 that Theresa logged on to her first IBM computer, one of the first-generation PCs and started to learn basic coding. She also became part of gaming communities to hang out with like-minded teens and learn as much about tech as she could.

“I was really fortunate to have this exposure in school,” she says.

This is what inspired her to break the mould and become the first in her family to earn a university degree. She passed on the traditional programming courses to study a Degree in Computer science, where she learnt business computing and systems integration design. The women she met and experiences she had would show her the path to her future career.

Making the jump from tech to sales

Soon after graduation, Theresa landed her dream role at IBM. As a part of the large systems support team, she learnt her products inside-out and would spend much of her days debugging technical problems for clients. She soon realised that it was this part of her job that she really loved.

“I got a real kick out of understanding client needs and influencing how to develop services for them,” says Theresa.

It was the firm technical foundation that she developed in her early career that would set Theresa up for a career in influencing and advising businesses how to use tech as an enabler.

That’s when she made the jump over to sales, an important step in her journey toward her current role. She was inspired by amazing role models at IBM and had opportunities to be mentored by outstanding women like Gerri Elliot who is now the Worldwide Head of Sales at Cisco.

“The leaders that I worked for really helped me develop my style and what I wanted to focus on. For me, that focus was customers,” she says.

A career (in) transformation

“It’s the pace of change that keeps me excited!” says Theresa of a career in cloud and emerging tech. As CEO of Datacom and now VP of Cloud and Customer Solutions at Optus, Theresa has had the opportunity to pass her enthusiasm at scale and bring teams on the journey!

“As a leader, you need to make sure you surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. We rely on the advice of our team to determine what to do next and where to take the business,” says Theresa of her consultative leadership style. This is what helps me act as a decisive and informed part of the decision-making process.”

Predictions for the future

We can all agree that the global pandemic has impacted the way we work. But Theresa sees silver linings for women including the advent of location-less workplaces, and the testing of arrangements that have challenged the needs for a traditional nine to five work day in the office.

“I’m excited for what the future holds for women in light of flexible arrangements. Attracting talented women is vitally important to the future of my team and for Optus.”