Women in Tech: Caroline Maulana, University of South Carolina

When Caroline Maulana enlisted in the U.S. Army as a financial analyst at age 20, she had already earned her undergraduate degree and attended school in four countries on three continents. It’s no wonder she thrives as Director of Business Intelligence at University of South Carolina, where her leadership role requires her to be a translator and diplomat among USC’s academic, business, and IT teams.

Hear how Caroline’s experiences led to her career in higher education technology, and why she is always “someone looking to make radical change.”

Transcript

Elizabeth Farrell:

Welcome to the Tambellini Group’s Women in Technology Spotlight Series. In these brief interviews, we discussed the career paths, accomplishments, and perspectives of the remarkable women shaping technology strategy in higher ed today. And today we’re lucky enough to be joined by Caroline Maulana, who is the Director of Business Analysis at the University of South Carolina in Columbia at the flagship institution. Welcome, Caroline.

Caroline Maulana:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Elizabeth Farrell:

It’s a delight to have you. Let’s start off by talking about what you wanted to be when you grew up. When you think back to when you were a kid, what were your career aspirations, if any, at that time?

Caroline Maulana:

Sure. So there were actually two things I wanted to be. I’m originally from Malawi, which is a small country in South Africa, but we are also, well, we were British colony, so we’re very much British centered. On top of that, my dad was in the Malawian army, so he was a General and a lot of his work included him traveling. I even spent some years in London when I was younger, but with the traveling, I was always fascinated by planes. I was always curious to the inner workings, how do they work? How do people know where to go, how do these pilots know where to go? So obviously the more I learned about planes, it was a whole team effort, a whole collaboration effort. So I always wanted to be a pilot. And besides that, for some reason I wanted to be a fashion designer. I think most kids, we enjoyed dress up and being imaginative, so that was my thing growing up. So really I want to be a fashion designing pilot, and that was it for me. That was going to be my career.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Those both sound like really cool jobs. I mean, maybe designing flight uniforms or attending uniforms or both. That’s awesome.

Caroline Maulana:

That could work.

Elizabeth Farrell:

So let’s talk a little bit about your education and career path trajectory. How did you go from this aspiration of doing planes and being a fashion designer to your current role now?

Caroline Maulana:

Of course, yes. So you grow up and then you gain new interests. That’s generally how it happened for me. But then went through school and I moved to the US in 1995, and at that time I was getting ready to enter middle school. And of course the school system was completely different. So you’re doing the basic geography, history, math, science, not so much focused on career until you get to the high school stages. So for me, it was a matter of getting good grades. As a child of immigrant parents, as an immigrant myself, that’s the standard, you get good grades. So I really did lose a focus of what I want to be when I grow up, just make good grades and that worked. But at the same time, when you are making good grades, you have so many people in your ear telling you what you should be.

And once again, being from an immigrant household, the fashion designing thing was out of the window. That’s something they couldn’t see return of value in a short, quick time. So for them, it’s a matter of be something concrete like the lawyers, the doctors, engineers, even a pilot, if that’s what you want to be. Just unfortunately, I had lost those dreams of being a pilot. So going into school, of course, trying to figure out my major because I had so many people telling me what to do, I got my undergrad in international business and marketing, and I figured the business aspect, keep it broad so that way I’m open to all industries and then the marketing, because I still have a creative side inside of me that I will always embrace. I think that was a fashion design side still peeking through. So my parents are satisfied though. They’re like, “Okay, that sounds like a decent major. Please go do that.” And that’s what I did.

And I graduated high school early, and most of that was because I started school early. So in a lot of foreign countries, we don’t have restrictions on age, on when one can start. School similar to me, I started school when I was two, mind you, just going to preschool. But nonetheless, I kept progressing. So, which meant when I did come to the US I was 10, so you can do the math, now my age, but I was 10. And in the US you should be in the fifth grade. So I had to take a placement test because back home I was in eighth grade, you can imagine I completely flunked the history, geography. I knew no presidents. I didn’t know anything about the American landscape to even pass a test. So of course I failed that.

But everything else I excelled in. And then they were worried about me socially, how would I fit in because it’s a new culture, luckily not a new language because I did learn English at a young age. But either way, my parents and the school went back and forth, and then I was placed in seventh grade. So because of that, graduating high school early, I did go to college in Montreal. And then at that time, because I knew I was on the younger, well, I was the youngest, so I knew that I was not ready for the professional role just yet because I was undecided on my career path. So I had my degree, but I joined the military as I mentioned, to buy myself time, to travel a little bit more.

And then I found a job within the military that was a financial analyst job. And I was like, this sounds interesting enough. For one, I can be in the office, sit at a computer. I’m not in any kind of war zone per se. I’m not in the front line. And then I can go to school for my graduate degree paid for. So I was like, Hey, this sounds like a plan. So I did just that. First deployment, if you want to call it, was Korea. I actually did end up getting deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but just by luck, three days before my orders changed from Iraq to Kuwait, so much more safe environment, which was great. So I finished the military, completed my degree, and luckily for me, I also signed a short contract. And then I got out of the military and then progressed with my financial analyst role in my working career because that’s what I had the experience in doing.

So being a financial analyst, reporting sales numbers, this is when I was living in Atlanta, every time I would have huge implementations, huge projects, I would always volunteer with IT department and say, “Okay, I’ll help test whatever it is you have.” And working with IT people I learned pretty quickly that you have different personalities. They speak a completely different language. So you have those people that are really technical, and then you have the business people who put you in the front of this project to go test or validate whatever it is. And then before you know it, I had relationships on the IT department and then I got recruited to an analyst role within IT. So I grew my role becoming a front end developer. Nowadays, I guess you can call it as a business analyst role, but I did very light development on the front end.

And that was great for me because coming from the business side, being an end user, I knew what it would take to speak to the customers. So I did the front end development around different software tools. Crystal Reporting, the whole SAP suite, BusinessObjects, Tableau, Fury, you can name it. So I did that for some years and then just grew within that. And to me that was satisfying enough because I could then speak the language that was both business as well as technical. And I think I made my career in that space of being one of the few people in the company who could do that. I was literally the liaison between the two teams, and it was easy to go back and forth, and that way I carved a niche for myself.

And back then there was no name for it. I mean, now we hear all kinds of names around analytics, data science, business intelligence, whatever you call it. But back then I was just doing my job. And then before you know it, that little segment grew into this thing that we’re all in now called analytics and big data and the knowhow around data and the science of it.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Wow. I mean, you have led such an exciting life at so many different places. I wonder the amount of countries and states that you’ve worked in at this point.

Caroline Maulana:

Well, the military took me to Korea, and then after Korea, it was Texas. Texas, it was deploying to Kuwait, and then that was the very last thing I did. And of course, once I got out of the military, I was like, Hey, where do I live now? Where do I make home? Do I go to my home state, which was Maryland or do I go explore somewhere new? I like new. So I was like, let’s find something new. And new for me was then Atlanta, Georgia. So that was my first place of employment, bought first house in Georgia, and then in the back of my mind, something was always calling me. I think once again, tying back to my aspirations of being a fashion designer, there’s this a small little company you might have heard of called Under Armour. They’re based out of Maryland.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Oh, yes, they are.

Caroline Maulana:

Sports, performance, apparel, you name it, right? Established in the mid-nineties sometime. Once again, Maryland being my home state, I always followed the story of Under Armour, the trajectory that the creator or the founder had for Under Armor. Starting from a football sports wicking shirt to this massive empire that it is now. I always wanted to work for Under Armour. Now of course, you’re going to ask, in what aspect? Am I designing? I didn’t even care. I was like, I love fashion, I love fitness generally because I’m an energetic person by nature. But then knowing the technology aspect that the company had to push all this product, I was like, I know there’s a space for me if I can mix all of that up. So when I was working in Atlanta, lived there for four years, actually, the whole time I kept checking Under Armour’s website to see what jobs would be available that I could be a good fit for.

And lo and behold, eventually there was a job for me on their business intelligence team. So went back, really went back home to Maryland, because Under Armour is [inaudible 00:09:20] for around eight years, and that’s where I really think I hone my skills as an analytics person, a data enthusiasts, once again, being a front end developer, but then talking to different people in the business that uses technology from merchandising people that work on, how do we place this mannequin, how do we dress this mannequin, to those people that work with creating distribution and opening brand stores or factory houses that call them. You don’t want to sell ski [inaudible 00:09:52] in a store in Charleston, South Carolina. You have to be cautious of the audience as well as the overseas stores that will open up in China. How do we cater to that audience? Do we really push golf product there? How much golf do they really play?

So all the information requires the knowings of the data and then the data and those insights, they’ll all come back to the IT team. So for me, every day on work was super exciting because it’s all these bits and pieces that I can chime in on with my expertise of data. And then just being around that fun working environment, very high energy. It was a great space for me to call, really, I considered my first real job, meaning out of the military and out of the financial analysis reporting I was doing working in Atlanta, that was fine. It just paid the bills, but there was no excitement. So when I did go to Under Armour, I did drink the Under Armour Cool-Aid, and it was amazing.

As I mentioned, I was almost there for about a decade, and the only thing that pried me away from Under Armour was literally growing a family and [inaudible 00:10:52] life that I need to tend to, right? And what’s the best outcome for them. So really that’s what made me leave was just looking out for myself and my lifestyle and what I wanted for my home life.

Elizabeth Farrell:

So what attracted you to higher ed then?

Caroline Maulana:

Great question. So from leaving Maryland, we were looking to make a change as a family. Had two young kids. When I say young, they were barely two and just around two months.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Oh wow, okay. That’s the full-time job in and of itself.

Caroline Maulana:

Exactly. So once you start thinking when you’re raising a family, you think of cost of living, you think of weather, you think of education system, it’s like, okay, where can we be and sustain this current lifestyle that we do have? I’m not saying we’re living a fabulous lifestyle, but you still want to make sure that everyone in the family in the household is happy. So we did the research and came to Columbia, South Carolina for all those reasons I mentioned, number one being cost of living, and this was ahead of all this mess that’s been happening with the housing. So I guess we were kind of forward-thinking as far as where to relocate to. So we moved here, it was actually New Year’s Eve of the year 2018, so the calendar was still December 30th, 2017. So you can figure out exactly when we moved. So that’s where drove us to South Carolina. Came here with no job prospect, of course, having the ability and having the resume knowing that I can get a job.

However, because that move was very much family focused, small-ish town, of course, still progressive, still diverse enough, that’s what drove us to South Carolina, and I figured my skillset, my know-how, would take where I need to go professional wise. Otherwise, I just had to buckle down and ignore all the other shiny job offers that may have been coming to me in the space that I work in, namely on the West Coast, a place that would’ve been exciting pre kids and pre family. But that’s what drove me here to South Carolina.

Elizabeth Farrell:

That’s great. So tell us about, I mean, it was fascinating hearing all the different aspects of how you’re using your skillset, knowledge and experience in the for-profit corporate world. What is a week in the life of your job like at an institution now being at University of South Carolina?

Caroline Maulana:

Yes, yes. And to add on how I ended up at South Carolina. So I took my time. Like I mentioned, my youngest was very young, two months. I was on maternity leave. So they afforded me the time to figure out what kind of company do I want to work for. I did some consulting for some insurance companies locally, but insurance is insurance. That didn’t really excite me. And then I did see an opening at University of South Carolina. Now a link that USC has with Under Armor, they were the first college signed to be sponsored by Under Armour way back when. Now this is a small fact that I didn’t even know till I came here, started looking for a job, but there was a need within it here, and it was called Business Intelligence Strategist. So I was like, this is perfect.

Then I understood that there was a need for a analytics expertise in higher education, and I was like, this has to be the job for me. And the job posting itself really attracted me because the open liner was, Someone looking to make radical change,” and then it went on and on. So right away I knew whoever wrote this job posting, we would be great friends. At least he’ll be a great supervisor, he or she.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Yes. Sounds right up your alley personality wise.

Caroline Maulana:

Yeah. So came here and it was exactly that. It was a great fit. So like I mentioned, higher education, I was not privy to the details. Of course, I had been a graduate student, undergrad student, college campus. You just meander your way in and out of classes. You do your work, you don’t think about the inner workings and who’s making this possible, who’s making the audiovisual equipment work, who knows how many numbers they need to consider this a successful year? So for me, being in higher education and learning all those things, of course I work in the IT department now, but then I’m a facilitator to all those academic units and administrative offices who may need information. So a lot of that has been implementing a Tableau platform. USC has now fully supported Tableau. So of course acquiring the product and then implementing it, meaning you are also a change agent because people were used to doing reporting in any kind of way.

Now when I say any kind of way, I literally mean just that. They see a tool, they buy it, right?

Elizabeth Farrell:

Yes.

Caroline Maulana:

So right away you can imagine the spaghetti diagram you end up with when everyone has different silos of reporting and data, there’s no cohesion. So the project-

Elizabeth Farrell:

And probably some overlaps too.

Caroline Maulana:

Many overlaps. Yes. So I was hired as the person to do the gathering, at the same time, create a foundation or something more, you could say, more efficient. And that just happened to be Tableau. So the job was perfect because it was going to be new, and new was exciting for me. At the same time, there was such a learning curve because whereas I was used to this, go, go, go fast pace, higher education, you have to think about policy, you have to think about the security of the data that you’re dealing with, the PERS Table information that you just can’t democratize to everyone.

So understanding that and understanding the value of the data stewards, how much say that they do have, and this data that they’re completely in charge of, and just learning to work and collaborate with everyone, of course there have been challenges in my day-to-day, whether that be leading project meetings, status updates, or meetings with different vendors and describing how we want a dashboard, per se, to look like. How does it make sense to the end user? Is this end user programmer super tech heavy, or is this perhaps a provost who’s looking for digestible bites, just key metrics? So understanding all of that is literally my day-to-day. Once again with vendors, sometimes stakeholders on the end user aspect, and then sometimes just sitting alone and trying to think how does the marking of this work, how does this fit with the culture at USC, and of course, respecting that even is like, and then how do I put myself in there to make sure that this still has my stamp on it, my marking on it to make sure that I’m still being my authentic self.

So a day-to-day can be filled with meetings, a lot of planning, a lot of whiteboarding sessions, a lot of talking to people. And of course a lot of emails that I have to sometimes read and reread twice because I want to make sure things come out as clear as possible, that I’m being open and listening to everyone’s input. Because ultimately we’re all here for the success of the students. We all have that one similar goal, but at the same time, you have to remind yourself and others of that same mission very often.

Elizabeth Farrell:

So I mean, it sounds like it’s such a job of herding cats. You’ve got all these different data sets, all these different tools, all these different approaches, all these different agendas from different people probably always have, it sounds like a lot of different projects going on. But if we whittle that down a little bit, is there a particular project or accomplishment that you’re proud of thus far in your work at USC?

Caroline Maulana:

Yeah, so this is timely. You mentioned herding cats. It’s actually like herding kittens. Similar baby cats sometimes.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Oh, touche.

Caroline Maulana:

Sometimes. No, I just like to use that joke all the time, but it’s not that bad. ‘Cause we all learn from each other, right? No matter if it’s a struggle, you learn. But yesterday we actually marked the two-year anniversary, I guess you can say, a fully standing up what we call CarolinaAnalytics. Now, May 4th was a date that we picked way back when. My boss takes credit for that, I report to the chief data officer and he was thinking, may the 4th be with you. How do we play around with the data. Well, how can we market it? So in the end, we didn’t go for the Star Wars theme, but for us it was beneficial because that date sticks to mind. But that two years literally marks when it’s fully went live, when it’s been fully operational.

So CarolinaAnalytics is a premier platform now, powered by Tableau Software. We have executive reporting that supports student core data. We are now implementing the HR data, but it has student financials data. We have LMS also known as Blackboard data, and you can imagine when 2020 happened, everything had to be online. That was such a powerful tool because how else do you gauge activity of students online? That was all LMS, that was necessary. So having this beautiful platform called CarolinaAnalytics to where you can go in there and pull up some core content, strategic dashboards that will cater to the top executive, down all the way to the busy bee analyst who wants to do some kind of extraction of a data set and do additional analysis for their supervisor, that is something that I’m very proud of because pre those two years was a lot of validation, a lot of putting together project groups, a lot of requirements gathering, a lot of meetings, and just face-to-face, you could say, a lot of tension even because people are used to doing things a certain way.

And then even just acquiring the grant and the funding to get some contracts set up with this external vendor. We went with a vendor called HelioCampus that made things certainly very easy because they do this, this is their job, and they were born out of higher education, so they completely understood us. But at the same time, USC is such a unique institution with unique people, you want to make sure that our needs are completely met by the service that HelioCampus offered us. So I would say the implementation of CarolinaAnalytics and having it run strong for a solid two years with 300 plus users has been my latest accomplishment at USC that I’ve recently just celebrated. So that was a timely question. Thank you.

Elizabeth Farrell:

That is amazing. Congratulations on that. What you’ve talked about being able to accomplish is something we hear all the time that institutions are trying to do in terms of bringing that consistency to the data, having the consistency in reporting, getting everyone rowing in the same direction. So that is an amazing accomplishment. Kudos to you.

Caroline Maulana:

Thank you. Thank you.

Elizabeth Farrell:

So our next question is a fun one. I’m wondering, if you have this omnipotent genie come down and they can answer any question that you would answered about the future direction of technology, what would you ask them?

Caroline Maulana:

Oh my goodness. I think because I work in higher ed now, I’m more sensitive to, once again, the privacy of certain information and the wellbeing of a student. And some of that can probably be attributed to being a parent, but really the ethics of technology, because it’s taken off full speed. Not saying we didn’t know this was coming. There have been movies and books written years ago about where we are now, but just the ethics part of it. Now you have ChatGPT and I know the functionalities with AI. It just makes me wonder who are those people sitting in to kind of guide that discussion around ethics or make those decisions? So that’s something that there’s a lot of talk about. But as far as clarity, I’m sure that’s the question only a genie could answer. So I would really appreciate some kind of guidance from said genie to give us the rundown on the ethics and where we’re kind of headed to make sure that students are fully supported if we’re to keep these institutions running.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Yeah, it’s also, it’s funny because before ChatGPT came on the scene in, what, November in a mass form, everyone had very different answers to that question about the genie, and now that seems to be the one that everyone wants to know about because we don’t know how much we get a say, and even what the direction and ethics would be right, because so many of these are based on external tools and platforms and companies that are driving that. It’s such a timely topic, for sure.

Caroline Maulana:

Yes, I try my hardest not to mention ChatGPT every day, but it just seeps in there because it’s a current hot topic.

Elizabeth Farrell:

It really does.

Caroline Maulana:

But really just all AI, what are we doing with it and how do we ethically manage it to make sure that all populations are served?

Elizabeth Farrell:

And who even owns those decisions is an open question. Well, let’s end on a note of advice. You have worked in a bunch of different places in a bunch of different environments. I’m wondering if there is a mentor or someone or some advice even from your family that you’ve been given on how to manage a technology career in a large organization where you have silos or different groups with different priorities, because that seems to also be a continuing theme in your life or just any general leadership advice that you have taken to heart.

Caroline Maulana:

I guess this is just life advice, my mother really just being yourself, right? The word authenticity comes to mind. I mentioned I’m a child of immigrants. Something else I didn’t share, I actually lost both my parents, my mom while I was in college. Yes. So one thing she always encouraged me to do is just know my value and be myself. So just those things alone, all the spaces I’ve been able to work in where I’m not completely represented. Even today, I sit in rooms to where sometimes there’s an age gap, sometimes there’s a gender thing, and then you have the color/race thing. Then I’m also an immigrant, as I mentioned. It’s almost this intersection that I sit at. So I use it to my advantage.

Not saying my unicorn in this space because there are a lot of women of color or people of color in this IT space, which is amazing, but use it to my advantage to make sure that I’m not forgotten. So I make my presence known, not necessarily being the loudest, but making sure that I’m putting in my best effort and people can recall that, make sure I’m helping people. I’m collaborating well with people, so that way people remember my good efforts and my contributions. So really just being myself, being authentic and leading with that because then if I don’t have to fake it, to be honest, it’s less work.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Right. Yes.

Caroline Maulana:

Yes.

Elizabeth Farrell:

I can certainly attest to that as well. I mean, it’s a lot easier for us to be ourselves because it’s a lot easier to be consistent in that realm.

Caroline Maulana:

Exactly. So that has always driven me in life, and it was a good lesson that I learned from her. And mind you, we never had to sit down like, “Be yourself.” It always came out in talks casually or little reminders here and there. So I do appreciate that because it’s something that’s always in the back of my mind when I’m doing my work in the office or outside of the office.

Elizabeth Farrell:

And it’s definitely an asset as well in a lot of ways in terms of the perspectives that you can bring from the corporate world, from different countries, their educational approaches. I imagine that that’s highly appreciated in a higher education environment too.

Caroline Maulana:

Yes, and it’s helped me relate to all kinds of people. I feel like I can be in a room with anyone and I can have a conversation with them, and I’m comfortable enough to do that because of my background and just this belief in myself really.

Elizabeth Farrell:

Well, Caroline, I cannot say enough how lucky USC is to have you and how honored I am to have had the opportunity to talk with you about your experience and your advice and perspectives today. So thank you so much for making the time.

Caroline Maulana:

I appreciate it. Thank you for having me once again.