• How can you be true to yourself while navigating a male-dominated environment?
• What are the contributing factors to career success in IT Consulting?
• What is it really like to work in IT Consulting as a woman?

Join us for a conversation with women in IT Consulting to find out the answers to these questions and more!

During this event we’ll hear from three women at different stages in their careers in IT Consulting. They will be sharing their personal stories about how they got into the industry, the challenges they have faced, what they have learned from their experiences, and what it takes to achieve success.

Agenda:

19:00 - 19:10 - Welcome & Introductions

19:10 - 19:55 - Speakers

19:55 - 20:30 - Questions & Discussion

Our Speakers:

Andrea Schmitz

Vice President Consulting Services CGI

After her studies in Mechanical Engineering, Andrea started her career as managing partner in a gardening and landscaping company, before changing her entire career to move into IT around 10 years ago. Starting as a project manager and consultant, she established herself and she is now leading approx. 65 people as a Vice president of her company.

Andrea will talk about how she spent years trying to fit into a male-determined world by covering up her personality, emotionality and way of communicating in order to be successful. In the process, she has learned that the most important success factor in her career path is the absolute opposite- and she started to be true to herself.

Today she is in a management position and shapes the system herself and changes it from above. For example, in addition to the potential and willingness to learn of people, she primarily looks for personal fit and the ability to self-reflect when hiring.

Sophie Bawin

Local Head of Intelligent Automation at CGI

With a background in mechanical engineering, Sophie was looking for a position after graduation in which she could discover and use her strengths. She landed in IT Consulting, and during the last 3,5 years has worked her way up to senior level. She believes in human connections and communities, and has been leading the local practice for intelligent automation, building a local Meetup group and establishing a german-wide Womens network within her company. Sophie will be sharing how she started a career in an IT Consultancy, the challenges she has faced and the learnings she has had along the way.

Nidhi Prakash

Business Consultant CGI

Nidhi has a background in engineering as well as international business. She pursued engineering for 2.5 years before realising this wasn’t the right path for her. After a few years finding her path, gaining work experience in Travel and Photography, the automotive sector, and the nutraceutical sector, she landed a job as a Business Consultant at CGI. Through this journey, she has learned about the skills that she possesses, which helped her start full-time as a Business and IT Consultant. Nidhi will be sharing her journey of discovering what she wanted to do, what she’s learned in the process and how she made the bold decision to change her career.