Meet Hina Shamsi: A Trailblazer for Women in Technology

Step into the New York City office of Hina Shamsi and you can’t help but notice the wall of women—12 carefully curated and framed photos of historical and modern-day female leaders. “I call it my wall of inspiration,” says Hina, the Chief Technology Officer of U.S. Banks and Head of Wealth Management Product Technology at Morgan Stanley.

Among those she’s inspired by are Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician from the 19^th century known for her work on the general purpose computer, but who was not recognized for her accomplishments during her lifetime. “Each set a path for women like me to succeed, and collectively they are my daily reminder that, no matter how tough it might seem, they had it much tougher,” Hina explains.

Hina’s journey, however, was not without challenges. While growing up in the Middle East, Hina and her family were displaced from Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War. They moved to Pakistan, where her parents had grown up. Despite societal norms there and the limited opportunities for women in her generation, Hina’s “open-minded and forward-thinking” parents encouraged her to go to college.

The first woman in her extended family to do so, Hina also took a huge “cultural leap” in coming to the U.S. to attend the University of Texas at Austin. “My father insisted I get my degree,” says Hina. “He wanted me to have the same access to opportunities and education that my brother did.”

When she first came to America, Hina found herself dropped into a new and drastically different culture, unsure of which career to pursue or where to seek guidance. She liked engineering and did well in math, so she decided to enroll in an applied mathematics program. Despite being in rooms with only one or two other women, Hina found joy in her technical classes.

Her academic pursuit did not end there, and soon after undergrad, she decided to pursue a graduate degree in engineering. After her master’s, she landed a job as a developer at a travel technology company in Texas and still remembers the excitement of receiving her first paycheck. 

TECHNOLOGY AS A TEAM SPORT

Hina’s career brought her tremendous success and she progressively took on bigger roles, “leading and managing others and creating products and technology to solve business problems,” she explains. Under her leadership, Hina’s teams have continuously challenged the status quo and are transforming financial services. Among their many achievements, they’ve modernized the bank deposits platform, moving it from mainframe to distributed infrastructure, developed a sophisticated banking OpenAPI platform, and are now experimenting with generative AI to deliver better experiences for both clients and employees.

“We have a world-class, engineering-led culture with centers of excellence in areas like cybersecurity, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning,” says Hina, who loves the creative process of her job. “We innovate and solve complex problems with solutions that move the business forward. That’s the part that keeps me excited about coming to work every day.”

More recently, her team launched the first ever reciprocal deposit program for the Banks with a sophisticated proprietary algothritm to optimize the balance sheet and client insurance. The modern architecture using microservices and cloud-native design coupled with agile delivery has allowed her team to continuously innovate to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving business.

She sees technology as a team sport, with everyone bringing different skills and strengths to the table, from hardcore developer skills to data analytics to business management. Her job as a technology leader is to understand those individual strengths and “create the right environment to bring people together—then get out of their way,” says Hina, who spends a lot of time “making sure we have the right team members with diverse skills and approaches, and that they know how to work together.”

In technology, a field that’s constantly changing and evolving, “you must have a student mindset and be open to new ideas,” she explains. Even after 25 years, “not a day goes by when I don’t learn something new.”

In addition to her “obsession” with learning (she’s currently learning to speak Spanish), Hina says she loves to cook and read. She also loves to travel and does so with her husband of 24 years, whom she met at college, and their teenage son and daughter.

A TRAILBLAZER FOR WOMEN

Her openness to new ideas is rooted in her embrace of diverse perspectives—and a commitment to making sure those diverse voices are heard. “At Morgan Stanley, that kind of culture is intentional and takes a lot of work,” she says. “But when different ideas come together, that’s when magic happens.”

This philosophy fuels Hina’s passion for mentoring and empowering others on their professional journeys, to give voice and visibility to underrepresented experiences and ideas. In addition to her active mentorship, Hina is the executive sponsor of the Asian cohort within the Race and Ethnic Diversity (RED) in Technology employee networking group. An active member of the Women in Information Technology networking group at Morgan Stanley, Hina also leans in to help members of the firm’s Return to Work program for women and Year Up program for young professionals.

For these efforts and more, Hina has been named a Morgan Stanley MAKER, Class of 2024, joining a community of advocates, innovators and groundbreakers for women’s advancement, all nominated by their peers. “MAKERS are empowered women that are leading the change, but also lifting others to do the same, creating a multiplier effect,” says Hina.

While more women are in technology now than there were when Hina started 25 years ago, a lot of work is still needed to attract even more, says Hina. “As a technologist, I want to encourage women to join our field and let them know we’re here to support them,” she says. “Programs like MAKERS, which elevate and empower women, are crucial to this effort.”

“The support and sponsorship of women here is unlike at any other firm,” she says. “I come to work every day at the most prestigious firm on Wall Street knowing that life has offered me an opportunity that most people don’t get, especially women.”

Grateful for “the incredibly smart and dedicated people” she’s surrounded by every day, Hina feels strongly that she would not be where she is today without the support of her parents and “the mentors and sponsors who saw my potential.” She calls those mentors and sponsors her “cheerleaders, those who speak on your behalf when you’re not in the room,” and her “truthtellers, those who tell you where you need to improve.”

This gratitude and awareness underpin her commitment to paying it forward and creating opportunities for others, especially for women, and women of color, like herself. “If I can do it,” insists Hina, “they can too.”