Expanding the horizons of our women in tech

At Accenture, we believe in providing boundaryless opportunities for our people across different roles and industries. Meet four #WomenInTech who share their stories of how they took advantage of the many opportunities to upskill themselves and how they built their tech careers here with us.

Taking a leap of faith into tech

I’ve been a pure humanities student since junior college, and my university major was political science. I joined Accenture after being invited to a tech assessment centre, where I discovered that I liked the brainstorming process and loved delivering a solution that made clients happy. Hence, I decided to take a leap of faith into tech. As a business analyst, I work in a fast-paced, hectic environment. Currently, I’m in a team that works on harmonising the processes between different organisations in the healthcare industry.

I’ve not had much exposure to tech in school or during my internships, so being in Accenture was a steep learning curve for me. Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to learn to code or program to work in the industry. But, we are encouraged to understand the principles behind them, even if we’re not able to program. Since joining Accenture, I’ve been exposed to COBOL, Java and SAP in my day-to-day role. I plan to take the Amazon Cloud certification soon. I also try to keep up with the latest trends through the news and by watching YouTube videos that explain the latest tech.

The best thing about Accenture is its people. When I reflect on my work and experiences thus far, I can say that the people I’ve met at Accenture have been the most supportive and helpful colleagues I’ve ever come across. I’m always blown away by the extent that my colleagues have reached out to support me despite their immense workload.

As a woman in tech, it’s great to see that there are many other female professionals and gender-balanced teams at the analyst level, but I hope to see more women from the manager level and up. It’s important for me to see women being represented at those levels because it gives me hope and confidence that I could be like them one day. Having more female leaders in the workplace will also make the office a safer space for women to feel seen and heard at work.

If you want to get into tech, believe in yourself and have the confidence in your ability to go far. See mistakes as lessons to be learned and commend yourself for every achievement, big or small. Lastly, find a like-minded tribe of individuals who can support your career journey.

Seizing a great opportunity

I am a system analyst for an energy component (EC) software, and I am based in Malaysia. In my role, I help manage clients’ requests on streamlining their processes and operations by using a hydrocarbon management system.

What I like the most about Accenture are the many learning opportunities and career advancement support, both of which are available to everyone regardless of gender and career level. I have a statistics background, but I do have a soft spot for tech as I believe these two disciplines work well together. At first, I was reluctant to dive into tech, but the opportunity to work at Accenture, my dream company, came to me so I took on the challenge.

When I first joined the company, I worked with one of our clients to update their global energy systems. It was a great opportunity to broaden my tech knowledge and consulting skills on the job. I also try to stay on top of the latest tech through conferences, webinars and certification courses. Recently, I enrolled in the Master Data Architect (MDA) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) programs to get professional certificates. I am also participating in Accenture’s Automation University which offers automation certifications and training for our people.

As a woman in tech, I found that finding a good mentor in the industry and being proactive in learning new technologies are essential. It is also important to have support from your team members. Their support, paired with Accenture’s initiatives, helped me with my work and mental health.

Reaping the benefits of working in different industries

I am the Country Lead for the Technology Services in Resources and Energy Client Group in Thailand. My role requires me to wear multiple hats. As a Client Account Lead, I establish relationships with executive-level clients. As a project director, I assist clients in planning and executing a project from beginning to end. I am also a delivery lead, who ensures that we deliver quality work.

I never thought I would be working as a tech consultant. I did my bachelor’s in information technology in Australia. Then, I worked a couple of years in production engineering for a global oil and gas company while completing my master’s degree in arts (information and journalism). Afterwards, I moved to the company’s IT department. I shifted between the business and IT sides throughout my tenure there before landing a role in Accenture. I believe that my experiences working in other industries helped me thrive in my current role as I got to use all the technical and soft skills I’ve learned and mastered throughout the years.

What I like best about Accenture is the abundance of learning opportunities. You don’t just learn while you’re in a project. You also have access to a lot of online resources and training courses for upskilling. These opportunities helped me gain the knowledge I need to manage clients better.

Working in tech made me realise that we need more diversity, as it creates balance and initiates creativity in the organisation. When people with unique strengths, skills and perspectives work together, they generate more meaningful ideas. We can create greater impact for our clients when we have more diversity.

To those who wish to work in tech, remember that everyone is uniquely intelligent, and gender is not an obstacle to pursuing a career in this field. Nowadays, we see a lot of women starting to go up the ranks in organisations such as Accenture. You need to believe in your own skills and act to achieve your goals.

Adapting a growth mindset

As a Technology Delivery Lead, I help build solutions for new services requested by clients. I also explore new ideas that can improve our current services and bring added value for Accenture and our clients. In addition, I am the community lead for SAP—a market leader in professional software and solutions—where I oversee a team that plans and conducts initiatives to improve engagement as well as capabilities within the SAP practice in Indonesia.

I had taken up Informatics Engineering in university, but I had no knowledge in SAP when I first joined Accenture. As I was assigned to different projects, I learned more about SAP and deepened my skills, specifically in materials management. I’ve since moved on to other projects and took on different roles where I learned retail price management using the Oracle platform, data migration and business process improvement. I have been assigned to several projects with clients from different industries including oil and gas, pharmaceutical, retail and mining. Now, my role is evolving towards project management and solutioning.

At Accenture, there’s always an opportunity to learn something new. It’s hard to get bored because there’s so much to learn. You can take training programmes, get assigned to different projects, hold a variety of roles and work with diverse teams.

But what I like most about Accenture is the flexibility. In my 15 years here, I’ve come to really appreciate how the company supports its employees’ professional and personal growth. There are several programmes that support women such as flexible working arrangements. This is helpful especially for those who have families. In fact, I am one of those who are benefiting from this initiative.

My advice to those interested in building a tech career is to be adaptable. Be open to learning new things. Build good connections with the people around you and have confidence in your own talents and skills.

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