I am the global head of onsite technology support. With a team of 190 people across 36 countries, I manage the support for circa 96K end user instances (desktop, Laptop, Virtual desktop). My team also provide the local site knowledge for technology related projects, real estate projects that impact technolgy and location related major incidents. We support Windows 7 and 10, virtual desktop, AV/VC, mobile apps, O365 and many other end user tools and services.
Bringing together disparate teams across 4 different regions (APAC, India, EMEA & US) to work together as a global function, sharig ideas, best practise and providimg a standardised service. This was particularly interesting due to the different cultures, workign with people who had been in the organisation a long time and were resistant to change.
I studied to 'A' level standard in Hotel Management. I changed my career path following the birth of my children and have developed my skills and knowledge on the job. Now qualified as an ITIL expert, whilst my background isn't specifically technical, I have acquired a broad knowledge across many platforms to enable me to manage a technical team.
Starting in a call centre managing a team responsible for reporting technical faults I quickly established a passion for technology, process improvement and automation. Having always been a people manager across my career, i wanted to be able to use my people skills in an environment that historically didn't attract my skillset. I wanted to be able to prove to myself and others that you can have transferable skills, that customer service skills do have a place in a technical environment and that technical skills can be taught to someone with a basic understanding.
Don't be put off by the perception that Technolgy is a male orientated field of work. Working in a technical environment ensures you are learning all the time. Change is a constant and the need for a balance in diversity is being widely recognised as the way forward. NOW is the time to explore the opportunities and not to close your mind to anything without investigating further.