Motivated by a drive to improve service delivery in South Africa’s public sector, Edna Eason is a leader in Accenture in South Africa’s Systems Integration & Technology growth platform.
She sees strong scope for growth in supporting the service delivery and technology needs of the public sector. “Government has taken visionary steps but a lot of work still needs to be done—particularly in human capacity development and accelerating service delivery,” she says.
Eason views her leadership role as an opportunity to advance that work. She feels that Accenture is exceptionally well positioned to assist not only South African government bodies but also the governments of other African nations.
After all, Accenture has proven global experience in helping large bureaucracies on their journeys to high performance. "This allows us to bring leading practices that unlock additional value,” she adds.
Eason and her team have worked closely with a variety of South African health and public service clients to streamline service delivery both in core areas and in back-office support. For instance, the Accenture Systems Integration & Technology team has worked extensively with the revenue service to improve tax collection and leverage technology. The team has recently supported a metropolitan municipality in managing its back-office operations, and is now involved in a major program initiative to help the government of a Southern African country integrate its different administrative levels.
Looking ahead, Eason notes that it is at the local government level that a real effort needs to be made: “Local government has so much to do and resources are constrained, even with the big budgets that they have,” she says.
Eason loves working with people and seeing them grow. She places great value on the mentoring that she herself has received in the close to 15 years she has been with Accenture, having joined in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in computer and economic science from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Another aspect of Accenture that she particularly values is its collaborative style of working with client organizations. “We don’t do something to them, we work with them to plan a project and implement it,” she explains.
In her spare time, Eason enjoys reading and riding her mountain bike. She and her husband are big Formula 1 fans, and she also watches cricket and rugby if the national sides are playing.
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