Sharon Chu

Prior to joining Accenture Sharon worked for four years at Yell Ltd. She was then trained as a Six Sigma Black Belt and worked as a Project Manager for Six Sigma projects within the Customer Satisfaction Programme. She joined Accenture in 2004 as an experienced hire.

A career at Accenture appealed to me because of the wide range of opportunities for growth and development, as well as its global network and the chance for overseas assignments. I have always wanted to work in a multi cultural environment on teams with people from all over the world. On my first assignment – four days after joining the company, I was sent to India for six months. Since then I have worked in Scotland, Holland, Hong Kong, Singapore and finally London! I love the international exposure and the experiences I have gained, both inside and outside of projects.

I have been involved in many of the networks in Accenture, including the Resources Women’s Network. I am currently the Asia Pacific Community Network (APCN) Lead. The APCN is one of three ethnic networks and sits under the Inclusion and Diversity umbrella. It has over 125 members and is managed by a committee of eight members. We run various streams of activities including Recruitment, Charity, Social, Communications and Liaisons. We take part in a Dragon Boat Race each year which is our key fund raising event. Other events include a Chinese New Year dinner with guest speakers, badminton and ice skating. Inclusion and Diversity is something I am very passionate about. It makes me feel proud working for Accenture for the amount of focus and energy we are increasingly placing on it.

On a recent project, I was the Change Manager at a local utilities company in Hong Kong. My role was to lead a team of 16 Change Agents from the client organisation, designing and executing the Change Management Programme including communications, training and post Go Live support and user readiness. I particularly enjoyed this project because I have always wanted to work in Hong Kong so through this, I have fulfilled a personal goal. Also, despite being Chinese and having lived in Hong Kong (HK) till I was 12, it was the first time I have worked there and to a certain extent it was an alien environment. The ways of working in HK are very different to the Western business culture but I enjoyed it because it was so different. I felt very much welcomed by the HK office when I was there. I helped to both organise and host a community event. I also worked on a charity project called ‘Little Reporter’, a programme offering English lessons to immigrant children in Hong Kong and then taking them out in the streets to interview tourists in English.

My personal goal for the future is to gain experiences working in Mainland China and to be involved in the company's growth strategy in China. I also want to be in a position to drive forwards the Inclusion and Diversity strategy within the UK. In the short term future, I am keen to take part in the Accenture Development Partnerships, a not-for-profit group that makes high-quality consulting services available at greatly reduced costs, to organisations working with developing economies.