A role model within Tech leadership

What is the success of becoming a good leader? It is both about recruiting outstanding talent and reaching organizational goals, but more importantly, about motivating and adapting to your team. Team Manager Arvydas Tomkus shares his thoughts on being a good leader.

Whilst taking his bachelor’s degree in Engineering Informatics and a master’s degree in Education Management, Arvydas Tomkus worked as a teacher. He enjoyed it, but due to a lack of job opportunities, he decided to switch to IT. After some time as a Support Engineer at another company, Arvydas started his SEB journey. He began as a Senior System Maintainer for SEB Global Services in Lithuania. His main task was to work on a project with the installation and configuration of Informatica Power Center and other related products.

Shortly after, the team needed to recruit a Delivery Lead and additional System Maintainers to scale the usage of these products. That is when Arvydas got the chance to take on the Delivery Lead role, where his main goal was to help the team deliver objectives and recruit new employees. After rapid growth in the department, a new Team Manager was needed, which is when Arvydas stepped in after a proposal from the department manager to take on the role.

Today, he works with real-time processing systems and products, specifically NoOps. His primary responsibilities are to support his team to deliver objectives, collaborate with product owners to bring continuous improvements and take the products to a new level.

The success of going from specialist to team manager, he describes, was that he had the soft skills needed for the position and about the mindset to “just go for it” and take the next step in your career.

The importance of being a good leader

“As a Team Manager, I work a lot with building a great team – both recruiting great talent and helping them grow professionally and personally. I want to build and maintain a team of people who trust each other, are not afraid of conflict, are committed and accountable, and care about results.”

Arvydas describes how a good leader needs to adapt as much as possible to reach both organizational and personal objectives. He loves seeing his team grow and achieve goals, and as a leader, it is essential to look at numbers and statistics and listen to your team and motivate them. He reflects that having a background as a teacher seems to help him in his managerial position.

The future of Tech

“I think Tech is going in the right direction, and we have significant business objectives to achieve. In recent years my biggest goal has been to grow in the Team Manager role.

Arvydas works in the same department as he always has; many of his colleagues have been here for a while. “They are my colleagues, but we have also become a family. I love my work”, he ends.