The podcast by project managers for project managers. Shaping the future of project management is PMI 2023 Future 50 honoree, and our second guest in our "Rising Talent" podcast series, Monique Sekhon. She is a trailblazer making waves both professionally and within her community. As the youngest chapter president in PMI global history, she embodies a passion for giving back to her community. Join us to gain fresh perspectives and valuable insights from one of the industry's brightest talents.

Table of Contents

01:56 … Meet Monique04:09 … Path to Public Health07:47 … Monique’s Current Position10:28 … Most Effective Project Management Practices14:36 … Collaboration with Stakeholders19:33 … Kevin and Kyle20:48 … Overcoming Attitudes and Challenges24:36 … PMI Chapter Leadership29:25 … Advice to Younger PMs30:28 … Monique’s Nonprofit Care-2-Share33:49 … Find Out More34:50 … Closing

MONIQUE SEKHON: …my job to work with people and talk to people and bring people together who are experts – because I’m definitely not the expert – bring those people together as a project manager into a room to say, okay, these are the priorities.  This is our common goal.….  And this is what we’re trying to achieve.  And then working with all of those people to determine, okay, how are we going to get there? 

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m your host, Wendy Grounds.  And right here in the studio we’ve got the brains behind the show, Bill Yates. 

We take pride in showcasing the remarkable work of rising talent, adding a fresh perspective to the vibrant project management community.  This is the second and final in our current Rising Talent series.  We have an extraordinary guest.  This is a trailblazer making waves in both her professional and community spheres.  Do meet PMI 2023 Future 50 honoree Monique Sekhon.  She’s a dynamic professional with project management in her DNA, as she’s going to explain to us. 

She joined the British Columbia Ministry of Health starting as a junior business analyst.  And here she played a pivotal role in the Health Data Platform project, which was a large-scale initiative to enhance the efficiency of health data access for researchers and academics.  She was promoted to senior project management advisor at the age of 22, and today she manages over 45 concurrent complex data projects.  Her impact extends beyond her job.  She’s a volunteer with PMI Vancouver Island Chapter.  And she’s currently the chapter president for the 23-24 chapter year.  She’s also the youngest chapter president in PMI global history.

BILL YATES:  That’s impressive.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Very much so.  So we’re excited to talk to Monique today.  Hi, Monique.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you for joining us.

MONIQUE SEKHON:  Thank you for having me.  I’m so excited to be here.

Meet Monique

WENDY GROUNDS:  We are looking forward to digging into your story and just hearing a bit about your journey into project management.  So tell us a little bit about what influenced you early on in your career in project management.  How did it start for you?

MONIQUE SEKHON:  Yeah, so it’s kind of an interesting story, and it’s a bit of a legacy story.  So when I was in high school, my mom was studying for the PMP.  So at our house, all over all the floors, every possible surface, there was a PMBOK and tons of material and all that good stuff.  My dad would sit with her and quiz her and ask her questions.  And then she would be like, “Monique, come and quiz me.  I need to prepare for this exam.”  And I think she did write it twice.  So as a result, it was like quite a significant portion of my high school life helping her with this.

And I just remember as she was going through, you know, studying and learning and hearing those words, okay, initiation and waterfall and all those, you know, terminologies.  And I’m somebody who has always been really active in school and sports and music and all that stuff.  I love doing projects.  I’m an ideas girl.  I’m a let’s man.  And so I really just realized that this is a structure to the work that I’m doing.  So I started to kind of look through her work and some of the templates she was using and that kind of thing.

And she came from a business analysis background. So I started to take some of her PM templates and co-opt them for my school purposes, you know, running fundraisers.  We had this great program at my high school called Cops for Cancer.  We raised like $100,000 towards cancer in our community.  And I used project management templates to help with planning that whole process.  And I really just found that it resonated with me so much.  I love efficiency, and I love being able to do a lot, but do it well.  So as a result, it piqued my interest.

And then without really, I guess, realizing it, I kind of went down a path that ended up being very project management-oriented, and people kind of put me in those roles because I was good at it.  I like to say, you know, it’s in my blood.  Like I just, I am a project manager through and through. 

Path to Public Health

BILL YATES:  That’s really cool.  I like your use of the word “legacy,” too.  You were a project management kid growing up.  It was natural for you and it happened to fit right along with how your brain’s wired.  That’s really cool. 

So what drew you to public health when you were approaching your career and thinking, okay, what industry do I want to get into?  What drew you to public health?

MONIQUE SEKHON:  So ever since I was a very small child, my parents really instilled in me the values of kind of being of service to others.  And it’s a big part of our culture.  So my heritage is from the North of India where our family is Punjabi by heritage.  And we have a huge culture around service.  So it was really natural for me to want to help others.  And I think, you know, many other children of immigrants may relate to this, but you kind of have three options when you’re growing up:  doctor, lawyer, engineer.

And so I kind of was like, okay, well, I guess doctor; right?  Like that’s my way to kind of give back and be of service to others.  I remember like one of my first forays into volunteering was actually like a BMX competition here in Victoria.  And I just had like a little volunteer shirt on, and I was handing out brochures or something about like the program.  And I just remember being, this is awesome.  I get to be part of something.  And then I started to volunteer kind of more locally with a lot of different organizations.  And then I was about, I was in middle school, so I would have been like 10 or 11 when I heard for the first time about this organization called ME2WE.  They have this thing called WE Day that they do every year. 

So it’s Craig and Marc Kielburger who started that organization.  And I remember them saying, you know, they had traveled somewhere, and they had seen for the first time kind of kids their own age and what they were going through in different countries.  And that really inspired them to want to help those children in whatever way they could.

For me, it was similar.  I traveled to India when I was about seven and a half.  And I just remember I had just arrived with my family, and we were in the car on this massive highway.  It must have been like a 10-lane highway.  In the middle there was like a divider.  And we were stopped because of course it’s India.  It was Bombay.  Tons of traffic. 

So we’re kind of stopped there in the car.  And I just looked over to the divider, and there was a little girl who looked the same age as me.  She must have been about like seven or eight.  And in one hand she had a little boy who must have been, like, two, holding her hand.  They were all covered in like soot, and they were dirty, and they didn’t have shoes or anything on.  On her other arm, which was amputated, she had a sling with a baby in it.

And she just kind of looked in my eyes, and I looked in hers, and I was like, no way is this real life.  That girl is the same age as me.  How come, you know, I’m sitting here in a car, having traveled on a plane from Canada.  And, you know, if circumstances had been different, that could have easily been me.  So I just really felt, if I’m going to be here for however long I’m going to be here, I want to be of service.  So, I mean, health just was a natural fit.

What I really love is my journey kind of started out with that more clinical perspective of, okay, I guess my only option is doctor.  And when I got into university, I got into a program that was focused on more of the population or quantitative side of health; right?  So more data, really.  And I fell in love.  I was like, okay, if I can work with this data, I can produce information that will change policy, that will change thousands upon millions of lives as opposed to being a clinician and dealing with like my roster of patients on a regular basis.  I want to be part of that prevention or that change that happens at the upstream level that makes life better for everyone.

Monique’s Current Position

WENDY GROUNDS:  Won’t you tell us what your current role is, where you’re working right now?

MONIQUE SEKHON:  Yeah, so my current role is I’m essentially a team lead or manager for, our area, our branch is mental health and substance use data priorities.  So it’s a bit of a mouthful.  We work in the community and cross-sector area, and I work for British Columbia’s Ministry of Health.  So we have a little bit of a different system here in Canada that mirrors kind of the UK system.  And so we have ministries.  I know it sounds very Harry Potter, but it’s not all magic.

Yeah, so at the Ministry of Health, we work with – in terms of data and health sector information analysis and reporting.  We work with administrative databases for the entire province.