Halina Niazi

How I’d Explain My Job to a Kindergartener

My job is like a knight protecting our kingdom’s treasures from pirates. Every day, thousands of people around world take valuable things invented and built by my colleagues without paying for them. My job is to find those people and have them pay for what they took.

What I Actually Do

I safeguard our intellectual property by ensuring compliance with our software usage. Through a special technology and referrals from third parties, we identify companies that are using unauthorized Ansys licenses. My job is to approach those companies to convert them into paying customers. 

My Career Journey

I have been at Ansys for 10 years now. After I completed my studies, I moved to Paris, where I only planned to stay for a few years. A job at Ansys was posted at the university where I was studying, and I happened to know someone from my hometown who worked there, so I decided to apply for a position as business operations specialist.

After several years, I was promoted to senior business operations specialist. In 2020, I was looking for a change and wanted to explore other paths. I just completed a business law course over three years while working at Ansys and taking care of my very young daughter, so I decided to pursue a role using my new degree. This led me to my current role today as an investigator in the license compliance department. Just recently, I was promoted to license compliance sales specialist.

Why I Choose Ansys

When I first heard about Ansys, I didn’t know who the company was or what we did. But when I saw the job description, I thought it was interesting to work with colleagues in different countries and cultures. I love working with people from all over the world. I am originally from Afghanistan and then moved to Pakistan before I moved to France for my higher education. Working in a very multi-cultural company that’s advancing innovation is more important today than anything else.

Furthering My Education

I have been fortunate to work for not only an international company with many opportunities for growth and development, but also one that supports me furthering my career and education. While I was doing my master’s degree in Geopolitics back in 2013, my manager in business operations supported me to take two hours per week to attend the compulsory courses. Then a few years later, I earned my most recent degree in business law with financial support from Ansys.

My Best Advice

If you want to grow or are looking for a change, you need to start from zero and build your own new path. Take on challenges — we learn new things from day-to-day work experience. At the beginning, it’s very difficult because you are out of your comfort zone. For the first year you need to be assertive, full of energy, and understand it will be difficult, but it will be worth it.

Also, surround yourself with people who encourage you and support you. Have a team where you feel like you are supported, engaged and transparent.

Getting Involved 

Outside of the company, I work as a volunteer within an organization called L’order de Malt — an organization of people who come to France and don’t speak the local language. I do translations for that specific agency — helping people solve their problems through their language barrier. As an example, I helped to translate for someone in the hospital while they were delivering their child. This is important to me because I’ve been in that same situation. When I first came to France, my father needed surgery and we were not in Paris, so no one spoke the English language. The surgeon was explaining everything in French and my family hadn’t become fluent yet. 

What You Might Not Know

I speak five languages. Persian and Pashto are two languages spoken in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, I learned Urdu and then learned French when I moved to France. I am also fluent in English. I began learning Italian but I’m not fluent ... yet.