​​Sharon, Director of Learning & Development for EALA
Date Joined Avanade: 2006

Tell me about the people you work with every day.
The exciting thing about being a talent manager is that I work with everyone from analyst all the way up to the CEO. I touch everybody every day—different people, different aspects, different skill families. In this role, you have to understand everything that goes on with each person in order to make sure that we're creating the talent our customers are looking for.

What prompted you to come to Avanade?
I was looking for a role and a company where I could make an impact—where I could feel like I was contributing and adding to the bottom line. And Avanade was definitely that place. Six years ago it was still developing, and we're still growing exponentially. Even though we've grown so much over six years, I still can talk to everybody. Everyone is so accessible. That's what I still love about Avanade.

What makes Avanade unique compared to other organizations?
When you look at how people share knowledge in Avanade, no one is scared of sharing what they know. Whereas in a lot of other organizations, people will hold that knowledge to themselves, because they believe holding the knowledge to themselves creates power. But not in Avanade. We share the knowledge, and I think that's why we’ve seen the exponential growth, because of the sharing of the knowledge.

What does Avanade do to invest in its employees?
I think everybody in Avanade has the opportunity to develop and grow. It's what they make of their career here with the opportunity to grow professionally and personally. There are lots of ways to grow within Avanade. There are various paths one can take. So you're not just stuck in an area.

If I compare, and I can't compare much because I was at IBM before that for 23 years—coming to Avanade was a breath of fresh air. All the things that I wanted to experience at a large company, I get here at Avanade. The freedom to talk to people, to come up with ideas, to feel like I am contributing and to feel valued and made to feel special. Those are all the things that make it important for me to want to come to work every day.

What would you tell someone who is thinking about getting into consulting? Why should they consider Avanade?
If you're talking about consulting specifically, I think it's a very special type of person to come into consulting. Consulting is another word for travel. You've got to enjoy that. You've got to enjoy the interpersonal experiences. You have to love people. You have to have an enquiring mind.

With consulting you're continuously growing your skills, your competencies, never being stuck in one area. If you work on a normal project, outside of consultancy, if you're doing .NET development you'll do .NET development forever more. As new products come out and new versions, you'll be stuck in that old version. With Avanade, you're always on the bleeding edge, you're always getting new opportunities. That's what makes it special.