Whether you’re looking to progress or pivot into a career in technology, the ever-evolving landscape means there’s an abundance of skills in demand and opportunities to make your mark.
According to Kim Harris, choosing the right organization to learn and grow in can be fundamental in shaping your trajectory, which she attests to. As Senior Manager, she’s been with Accenture for nearly three decades.
Her journey began when she gained a university scholarship to complete her honors degree in computer science. This led to her first internship at Accenture and eventually a job offer:
“In the early days, I worked with governments, electricity companies, and manufacturers, deploying SAP systems. I specialized in data conversion – ensuring data from old systems fit into new formats. I spent more than a decade in this field, eventually moving into business consultancy.”
Her time with Accenture has equipped her with a unique perspective about what sets the company apart. She shares a few key organizational features that have supported her success.
1. Flexibility and support for all walks of life.
Flexibility and support are the most obvious organizational benefits to look for. it’s certainly been core for Kim.
Kim shares how her firstborn needed her to be more hands-on at home, and she knew she’d need some more flexibility, and her manager was right behind her:
“I had my first child, Sarah, when I was 31. She was not an easy baby—she breastfed every two hours and didn’t eat solid food until after 12 months. I took six or seven months off and told my boss I couldn’t return to project work. Thankfully, my manager, Catherine Eastwood, suggested I help her with business operations, working 10 hours a week while Sarah napped. This involved planning engagement activities, managing learning programs, updating policies, and organizing events. It was a flexible role that used my organizational knowledge and allowed me to balance work and motherhood. I worked in various part-time ratios, in increasingly senior positions, while Sarah was small and through the period when I had my second child, Thomas. ”
This led to Kim working in high-growth markets, covering regions like China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and later supporting the head of technology in Australia. But an unexpected life event occurred when her second child was three:
“I was diagnosed with a high-risk breast cancer gene, the same one Angelina Jolie has. This delayed my return to full-time work as I underwent a double mastectomy, reconstruction, and had my ovaries removed. Accenture was incredibly supportive, allowing me to take three months of sick leave and accommodating my availability.”
Once she recovered, she was eager to return to more challenging work, and Accenture was ready to welcome her back and meet her needs.
2. Trust and autonomy from leadership and management.
When she returned to work, Kim was fortunate to connect with Luke Higgins, a Managing Director at Accenture. He recognized her computer science background, offered her sponsorship within his group, and gave her the time to re-skill in the cloud space – a huge technology shift since she’d left when everything had been at physical servers on-site.
“He also connected me with a fantastic mentor, who was incredibly patient and answered all my questions. Working in Accenture‘s innovation space, we developed new client solutions – such as systems to predict issues before they occur, keeping things like bank ATMs running smoothly.”
The incredible support she’s received from the leadership team has been something she’s valued – most notably through the flexibility and autonomy of a nine-day fortnight, enabling her to balance family responsibilities.
“Leadership sponsorship and mentorship have been instrumental in helping me rotate roles. It’s allowed me to develop and learn at my own pace, on my own terms.”
Kim believes more people need that confidence when switching careers, especially working parents:
“Sometimes, there are assumptions that women returning to work need to start again from the bottom or need extensive coaching to succeed, which can be a real disadvantage. They just need the opportunity, so leaders who can provide that are invaluable. Trust and autonomy are the two key ingredients. Our team operates with a high level of flexibility but also a high level of responsibility.”
How can Accenture’s career development initiatives support your own career progression?
3. An inclusive environment for all.
For women in tech, joining organizations specifically focused on supporting gender diversity, inclusion, and flexibility can be a significant step toward finding success on their terms.
Even after working in technology for nearly three decades, Kim admits it’s still male-dominated. For instance, around 20% of the workforce in cloud technologies are women:
“That said, Accenture is an inclusive environment that has supportive policies for women, from flexibility and supportive hiring practices to IVF and menopause. It’s also supportive of LGBTQI+ individuals through progressive policies such as gender-affirming care. It’s a huge organization with many opportunities. There’s lots of internal mobility and room to move between teams, so you can find what suits you best.”
Working in product development at Accenture affords Kim greater flexibility than in other areas, such as client-facing roles.
“What I appreciate most is the trust that the work will be done, without the expectation it has to happen strictly between nine and five. In my team, 14 out of the 31 people are working parents, and we operate on this basis. I’m also proud to support women who want to progress from project management roles, especially those with technical backgrounds. We support a number of women each year to grow their skills.”
4. Internal mobility and opportunities for growth.
For those looking to achieve career success, are there new opportunities within your existing workplace you can explore? Kim recommends that having a strong reputation and connections within a company can help you pivot or try new things and explore new avenues:
“Having such a long tenure here, perhaps I’m a bit biased! But it’s worked well for me and allowed for a very organic career progression. For people thinking they need to change organizations to progress, don’t hesitate to explore internal job postings and start conversations about different roles with people in other business areas. Your reputation and connections can streamline the process.”
As a leader, Kim shares that one of her biggest priorities is creating opportunities for her team to do exciting and impactful work – and making sure they have the right support to keep learning and developing as professionals in the space:
“A big part of that is helping people recognize the need to invest in themselves early in their careers before starting a family and other commitments arise that can start to slow things down in your career progress. Whether that’s traveling, trying unusual roles, and building as many skills as possible.”
5. A chance to be innovative in the future of technology, AI, and data.
A significant part of Kim’s work has been expanding Accenture‘s support for its teams and clients by using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies to improve their work. It’s an exciting area of the industry to be working in:
“I think data and AI, especially innovation-focused AI, is where we’re heading. We’re doing a lot of generative AI work for our clients, and we want to figure out how to break down this new technology and then put it back together in a way that works.”
With her extensive background and experience in technology, Kim is very much engaged in seeing how these emerging technologies can not only make workplaces more efficient. She also points out how these opportunities feed directly into her ethos of ensuring her team has exciting and innovative projects to get stuck into:
“In the last six years, I have been working as part of the myWizard AiOps team. We’ve been trialing emerging solutions in HR analytics and automation. Our standout product has been CloudChaser, an automated solution for proactively contacting employees via chatbot in Teams. This product was used to help Accenture reach out to people working from home during the COVID office closures, plan vaccines for 300K+ India employees, and other strategic initiatives for leaders including Julie Sweet.”
Impressively, Accenture won the ARN Emerging Innovation Award 2021 for developing its HR communication tool, myBuddy, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This involved scaling and evolving existing tools to solve emerging challenges. Today, myBuddy supports over 500,000 people daily in 41 countries and has been adopted by clients to solve engagement and productivity problems.
6. Avenues to reskill for in-demand needs.
It’s clear that through her time at Accenture, Kim has had opportunities to grow and develop her skills in line with industry growth and trends. She shares that for anyone worrying they don’t have the right background or abilities, it’s never too late:
“You don’t need to be a veteran in Java or have decades of experience to work in IT. By identifying the skills currently advertised in the market and acquiring them, you can quickly transition back into the field. Learning to be a prompt engineer for generative AI is the next hot skill we can see in the market. It’s important not to underestimate the demand for various tech skills, even those that might seem very specific, like front-end React development. Many short six to eight-week courses can teach these in-demand skills.”
She leaves us with some essential advice for anyone ready to leap into the sector:
“It’s never too late to learn something new. Find out what skills are needed for the job you want by asking someone who is already in that role, and then pursue those skills. While it can be challenging, don’t rule yourself out of IT just because you don’t have 20 years of experience in a specific technology.”
