David McCurley
Global Managing Director, Human Services Industry
Accenture
Excellence in Client Service
David McCurley likes to tell a story about a new child support fulfillment system: The mayor of the city where Accenture had put in a system received a letter from a woman thanking him for the system. Because of the system, the city was able to track down a delinquent ex-husband who owed more than $50,000 in child support. The woman said because of the system, it's the first time in ten years there will be presents under the Christmas tree.
"We were still in pilot on the system, and everyone was working really hard, and I stopped to read that letter to the team," McCurley recalls. "We suddenly all knew the impact of what we were doing and why. It matters… and that's why we're here these long hours."
As the global managing director, human services industry for Accenture's Health & Public Service, McCurley and his team of 6,000 strong has helped make an impact all over the world. "We created a virtual labor market in Germany to attack their unemployment problem. Since it went live, 10 million Germans have found work because of it," he says. "You can measure these things in human terms, and it's pretty easy to get fired up about it."
No wonder McCurley's spent most of his 22-year Accenture career in human services. Under his leadership, the practice grew 16 percent last year. His vision also helped launch Family First, Accenture's streamlined model that re-aligns services, making them cross-program and family-centric, getting benefits to people faster and saving budget-stretched governments lots of cash. "Historically all of the programs have existed in isolation. It's actually a cost-saving measure if we can get people back on their feet faster," he says. "If people only needed one less week of benefits per year, you'd save $45 billion a year."
McCurley also knows firsthand about public benefits. "I had a child when I was still in school, and I was on Medicaid and housing assistance so I know what it's like to be on the other side of that table," McCurley say. "I'm really fortunate that my career has given me the opportunity to pay that back. The work that we do doesn't get translated to the bottom line of our end users, but it makes a huge contribution to the quality of their lives. I see this award as a huge validation of what we're doing."
—Joseph Kornik
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