Why a diverse and technology-led workforce is the future
Meet Dara, Digital Transformation Director in the PwC Consulting practice. Dara joined the Consulting graduate programme in 2011 and has been driving cultural change across the firm for the last four years. She’s leading a movement of enhancing digital ways of working across Consulting which includes driving changes in skills, relationships, mindset and behaviour. Dara shares her journey to becoming a Director at the firm.
Tell us about your journey to becoming a Director
Growing up, I never knew what Consulting was. Joining PwC, I never imagined I would stay more than two years. 10 years later, and I’m delighted to say that I’ve now been promoted to Director. Yes, that’s right, a Director at PwC.
I started at PwC in 2011, joining the graduate programme. At that point, it was very much about getting a breadth of experience and exposure to the working world. What’s kept me at PwC is all the learning and being able to stretch myself.
Back then there weren’t, and still aren’t, many people who have a similar background or look like me in senior positions; what’s also kept me here is a drive to change that and the opportunities to do so.
When I first joined, my main challenge was more from a social mobility perspective, not so much race or gender. None of my family come from a Professional Services background, and having to work that out and navigate the challenges that came with that often felt quite daunting. I knew it was unlikely I was the only one feeling this way so I started the Diversity Mentoring Scheme with the intention of creating greater access for people from different backgrounds to join PwC - by thinking about intangible blockers that could be preventing people from diverse backgrounds from joining or applying.
Tell us about the inclusion and diversity innovatives you’ve been involved in
My involvement in diversity and inclusion initiatives has changed throughout my career journey. While I was still a Manager, I launched the Multicultural Business Network (MBN) in 2015 to start conversations about race and culture in the workplace, help empower our people from minority backgrounds to navigate career opportunities, challenge the culture and raise awareness across the firm.
We launched the ColourBrave campaign in 2017 as a result of that and it was really an opportunity to open up the discussion even further. Kevin Ellis, Senior Partner at PwC UK was at that first event, he spoke about how we’d released our Black, Asian and minority ethnic pay gap. With around 200 people in the room, the energy around it got me really excited that we were creating a buzz around race - that it shouldn’t be seen as a taboo topic but that we all need to recognise it does exist and will affect how people experience the workplace and life. It’s now become a firmwide initiative.
Launching and spearheading these initiatives is one thing, but watching them grow, and go beyond expectation has been amazing. I’ve always felt that the culture at PwC is such that if you feel something isn’t working, you have the power to change that.
I’ve been fortunate to have had the professional opportunities that I have. Having worked on large scale transformation projects and with big, global, multinational companies who are undergoing systemic changes to their whole operating model, I’ve helped shape how an organisation works. More recently, I’ve had the opportunity to shift mindsets and ways of working across our Consulting practice by driving new, digital ways of working such as Design Thinking and Agile. I’m proud of how this has helped differentiate us from our competitors. I’m doing the same now, but for clients - helping them to be fit for the digital age, responsive to change, better able to adapt, better able to predict and deal with disruption as leader of the BXT team (Business Experience Technology). Our team brings together diverse perspectives from across organisations to rapidly solve problems and drive sustainable outcomes. This is at the heart of the New Equation and shows why diversity of thinking is so important to solving problems in a digital age.
Looking ahead, technology is going to shape the future, as we hope our products and services will do. Having a diverse and technology-led workforce in this space is going to be vital to achieving that. As a Director, I’m really looking forward to growing my business area, empowering my team and finding opportunities to support our clients in an area that’s new for PwC. I’m also excited about being able to harness a more digital culture, in an environment where we’re able to attract the best skills and where we can work together, using our skills in unexpected ways.
Tell us about some of the factors to your success
My journey has been bolstered by other people championing me - mentors, sponsors, career coaches and a lot of people in my team cheering me on. Mentors, inside and outside of PwC, have been invaluable because they’ve helped me focus on what’s important and been able to offer a neutral perspective at times. Sponsors have been the people who’ve helped put me in the right client conversations, talked about me when I’m not in the room, and helped promote the work that I do. Humility is a cultural inheritance for me, but it doesn’t play well with how performance is measured or promotions happen. Being able to have other people champion me, my work and ensure it’s visible to the right people has really helped, alongside self-promotion.
PwC has stretched and challenged me but most importantly allowed me to stretch and challenge PwC in turn. I’m incredibly proud that I can continue to have a role in leading our firm to be a better place and helping our clients adapt to this new normal.
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