The Big Picture

Adam currently works as Digital Identity Lead for Avanade UK & Ireland.  Adam’s role involves running the Digital Identity practice within Avanade UK & Ireland, managing a team of 15, developing service lines, winning deals, and supporting delivery operations.

His Journey

Adam started his journey by studying BSc Physics at the University of Leeds where he achieved a First-class degree. He then completed a fully funded scholarship at the University of Manchester for a MSc in Nuclear Science which is part of the Nuclear Technology Education Consortium (NTEC) programme. Later after applying to many firms, PwC offered Adam a graduate role as an Information Assurance Consultant due to his physics and mathematics background. He was then promoted and transferred internally to the PwC Cyber Security team due to his analytical skills.

He found the Cyber Security role more interesting than his previous role at the firm, and after working at PwC for two years, Adam joined NCC Group where he was promoted 3 times from an Information Security Consultant to a Principal Consultant and the Digital Identity Service Lead. Adam’s skillset developed during his time working at NCC and after four and a half years he moved to Avanade as a Senior Manager in Security Advisory. Adam worked for 12 months leading the newly formed Security Advisory practice before being internally promoted to the Digital Identity Lead for Avanade UK & Ireland.

“As I progressed through my roles I faced bigger challenges, from bigger clients, ultimately going from managing various projects to managing programmes of projects, to managing teams who are running programmes.”

The Application Process

“It’s an intense world with very ambitious people and you need to take risks and push your comfort levels regarding what you “know”. You’ll need to learn on the job and get comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

Adam explains that the application process to find an initial graduate job was very difficult. He would go to LinkedIn, email a lot of recruiters or even current employees from various firms asking them to have a chat or cup of coffee so that he could tell them what he wants to do and get any advice. But only occasionally would he get a response where the employee would agree to meet and most of the time no one would even reply. Many times he attended an interview or a chat he would be rejected, but he would learn from each chat what he had to improve on.

“You have to get comfortable putting yourself out there, if you aren’t “out there” no one will see you in the ocean of applicants. You must have the confidence to be yourself.”

Set Backs

He acknowledged that trying to get your dream job or career isn’t that easy and there’s a lot of obstacles you must face in the process.

“You need to learn what the company wants and how they want it as most companies want 4-5 things. If you can demonstrate in the interview you possess those qualities, its game on.”

Adam learnt a lot from his jobs from his past and with the skills he learned he slowly progressed through the firm to get to the position where he wanted to be. He identified that his ability to learn new things quickly and without fear is what helped him progress in his career, a skill he attributes to his physics degrees.

The Company

Avanade was founded in 2000 by Accenture and Microsoft, employing over 65,000 people in 2022. Avanade are leading the systems integrator market in providing innovative digital solutions, business solutions and design-led experiences for clients.

The Next Step

Adam enjoys his role at Avanade. He’s keen to continue to progress at the company in the future and has this piece of advice to those who are trying to get into the industry:

“Volume doesn’t overcome quality when it comes to careers. If your CV is perfect and you apply to one firm there’s a higher chance of you getting in then someone else with a mediocre CV applying 50-100 firms.”