My aspiration in life is to be happy!
A couple of months ago, I was asked to provide content for my company’s women network intranet website. I received a long list of questions, out of which I was instructed to select 4 (3 related to my career development and 1 out of the box question). I was totally surprised by the level of interest after the text was published on our portal. A lot of my colleagues were interested in how I was moving from role to role and what motivated me to do so. I had not realized before, how many people are struggling with finding their passion and changing the status quo. I was almost blind to that and I felt alone with my challenge.
We all have different priorities and aspirations. Mine is to be happy. I am not sure where I will end up. Perhaps one day, you will end up ordering a V60 coffee from me somewhere in Berlin. Who knows? As long as I will be happy making coffee for others, that will be my win! I will be able to say, “I tried many things and eventually I found out that being a barista and selling specialty coffee makes me feel happy and successful.” This is my goal!
Therefore I thought that I would share with the Medium community the “interview” I shared with my colleagues (this is an extended version) and use it as an introduction to my next article. Let’s keep it a mystery for now :)
- Tell us about your career path (e.g. how long have you been with Accenture, what type of work you do?).
I joined Accenture in 2010. My very first role was in Cash Collection team for one of our CMT (Communication, Media, and Technology) operations clients. I had the opportunity to collaborate with amazing people and gain my first experience of working for an international company.
After almost 2 years I took over a very inserting role in the Warsaw Delivery Center. I was responsible for Client Visits and Risk and Compliance. It was a very dynamic and challenging role which gave a lot of satisfaction and networking opportunities.
In mid-2013 I moved to Berlin, Germany. In my new role, I was running PMO for EMEA Solution Development team and later also for EMEA Mobilization team as well.
In the meantime, I discovered the concept of Design Thinking and fell in love with it. I joined Accenture Design Thinking Academy in Dublin. After that training session, it was clear to me that this is a direction I want to follow. I continued learning and practicing the design thinking mindset. To expand my horizons and knowledge, I took the decision to sign up for a post-graduate degree in SERVICE DESIGN. My current role in Accenture Operations is fully focused on innovation and design thinking.
2. What do you think has been the key to your success?
Learning, learning, and learning. Never stop learning. This is my motto. In my opinion, the life-long learning and development is the key to professional well-being. It’s not about formal education. I am doing my best to never miss a new learning opportunity. Of course, it is not easy. Sometimes it is stressful because it requires additional effort and higher flexibility. This is all true, but I have never regretted that.
I am about to start a new learning adventure. In October I am beginning a 2 years MBA program. I am very excited about it and cannot wait when I will be able to apply the knowledge gain during formal studies in my work environment.
The MBA program is now in progress and I love it. It was not an easy decision to sign up for the program. I knew that this is going to be a huge financial and time effort. So far I have not regretted it, not even for a moment.
3. What do you like to do when you are not working? If you wish, tell us about your home life, hobbies, vacations, volunteer work, etc.
I think I can call myself a food lover or perhaps even a foodie. Passive and active. What does it mean? Well… First of all, I really enjoy good food. Whenever we go on holidays together with my husband (and we really love to travel) we select locations according to a “food map”. It is a geographical representation of our favorite food, new cuisines that we would like to try, wine regions, and good specialty coffee. We enjoy visiting new restaurants and eating local delicacies. This is what I call being a “passive foodie”.
I also enjoy cooking and baking at home, therefore I use the “active foodie” to describe this way of spending my free time.
4. If you could have dinner with someone famous or influential (living or dead) who would it be and why?
The business world is still dominated by men. When I think about this situation, it reminds me of a very iconic photograph picturing participants of the 1927 Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons. What is unique about this image is that, not only does it portray some of the most notable physicists in the history including Einstein, Schrödinger, Bohr, Heisenberg or Planck, but it also shows Maria Skłodowska-Curie being the only women invited to this symposium. This was an exclusive, invitation-only gathering and some people say, that despite being a Nobel prize winner, Maria had to dress like a man in order to be accepted. If I had a chance to have dinner with her, I would definitely ask her if world’s brightest minds of the time treated her any differently because she was a woman. I would also like to know if she had hoped that 90 years later, it would be much more common for women to be part of “exclusive circles”.
How about you? With whom you would have dinner with and what would you ask him/her?
