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I always admired people that were certain about their profession. Classmates, that already knew back in school what they wanted to do for life and planned their entire career accordingly. I, on the other hand, wanted to be outfitted as broadly as possible to prepare for many interesting subjects to come. Starting my career in Finance seemed to be the best fit in combining curiosity and flexibility to administer any new topic.
Around the time I wanted to focus on corporate finance, I realized that my employer was not the right choice for my aspiration. I worked for a mid-sized bank and picked up a few valuable skills, but did not experience the growth and development I believed would be necessary. What I needed was a broader scope, and I enrolled at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management for my Master’s degree.
With all my work experience I still envisaged working on economic and financial matters, but certainly did not want to return to line activities after graduation. The consulting industry seemed to provide many possibilities to people like me, but the variety of actors in the market is quite impressive. The broad range of globally operating consultancies to smaller, dedicated corporations is challenging to overlook for any newcomer. I only had little insight to this industry so far nor worked with consultants before. Still, I was eager to collaborate with teams from diverse backgrounds and disciplines and to challenge myself.
I attended plenty of recruiting events, visited career fairs and got in touch with several company representatives. Soon I recognized that most consultancies do not differ in services or salary, but in people and culture. While they often work for the same client in the exact same project, their thinking, attitudes and values certainly deviate from one another. With all the genuine personalities of the consultancies I interacted with, I chose Sopra Steria Consulting.
Starting at Sopra, it was a bit of a surprise to learn a lot on similar topics by taking an external perspective. I was supposed to join a project on money laundering prevention – a topic entirely new to me. My previous career had prepared me in consulting mid-sized corporations, but was I also capable in consulting multi-national clients on topics I only had academic knowledge of?
I soon found myself in the middle of two worlds. Sopra Steria Consulting as my recent employer and the client as a first endeavor to prove consulting skills. Although this was certainly challenging at first, I was part of a well-experienced team of consultants that enabled me to quickly understand the client’s situation, complex interdependencies and effective ways to drive impact. I began to develop specialized knowledge in Anti-Financial-Crime cases from Know-Your-Customer issues to Fraud Prevention, and quickly took over more accountability.
What I probably appreciate the most about Sopra Steria Consulting is that my manager continually pushes me to expand my capacity to think at a higher level. From the moment I joined, we worked out a personal development plan tailored to my individual ambitions. With a combination of technical and skill-building trainings besides the project, I am able to reach key milestones that take me to the next corporate level and advance my career. Continuous learning and interacting with such colleagues is a real privilege. In the end, my indecisiveness about the “right” profession led me to a job that provides me with the flexibility and independence perfectly aligned to my preferred way of working.
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