The 2022 Women Leaders In Technology: Kim Clarke

Kim is a Principal in EPAM's Transformation & Change consulting practice. She brings over 25 years of proven experience in digital transformation, human-centered organizational strategy and design, target operating model design, organizational effectiveness and change management. Her passion is collaborating with clients and partners to operationalize innovative, bite-sized change that unleashes creative potential, cultivates well-being and grows capability to achieve business strategies. Kim's experience spans a variety of industries, including Telecommunications, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Financial Services, Energy & Utilities and Retail & Distribution.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

My greatest achievement is leading the architecture, co-creation and operationalization of a new mission-based values for a $3.8B healthcare organization, across 20+ previously disaggregated community-based hospitals with over 28K employees to improve engagement, retention, patient experience and community impact. My work initially involved conducting over 75 working sessions involving leaders and staff with quantitative and qualitative models to gain alignment on the identification, articulation and meaning of values that represent the unique culture of how they live the mission. After gaining senior exec alignment on the final set of value statements, we brought the values to life through immersive physical and digital experiences customized to each hospital. To fully operationalize the change, I led the realignment of mission-based hiring, onboarding, performance management, rewards and recognition systems, leader competencies and patient experience models to the new mission-based values. To this day, the new values are widely promoted as differentiators of employee retention, patient experience and community impact.

What advice would you give a professional just beginning a career in consulting?

My key pieces of advice include:

• Always be curious to learn more about our client's business, challenges, opportunities and where your work brings value
• Be clear about expectations on what success looks like for your role
• See feedback as a gift as we all benefit from learning and growth
• Build your professional network across your organization (advisory, consulting, design and delivery) and with your clients
• Cultivate your brand by being at your best in your interactions, being clear and confident in your value, and following through on your commitments
• Build trusted relationships with your clients through empathy, passion and commitment to results – genuinely show that you care about their personal and professional well being
• Be comfortable with ambiguity and rapid change

What have you loved most about your consulting career?

I love bringing together teams of cross-functional consulting professionals who are passionate about creating and embedding transformative digital capabilities that radically impact a client's workforce effectiveness, financial performance and competitive position.

What's the best advice—personal or professional—you've ever received?

The best advice I ever received is "and, not or." Throughout my consulting career, I have learned that the greatest value comes when teams are able to move beyond their competing agendas to collaborate, co-create and implement breakthrough solutions for clients.

The consulting industry is very demanding, attracting bright and ambitious professionals rewarded for flawless delivery, high utilization and revenue growth. As a result, consulting teams can become siloed and competitive. This deprives our clients of the best of our shared capabilities and solutions, and our colleagues of being part of a collaboration network from which they learn, grow and feel a sense of belonging. Yet, when we apply "and, not or" we gain the win-win-win for our clients, our teams and our business.

What does being honored as a Woman Leader in Technology mean to you?

I am truly humbled to be on the list of this year's list of Women Leaders in Technology honorees. Although the personal lift of getting this recognition after a career in consulting is rewarding, I am more excited about how this recognition inspires and attracts a greater diversity of talent at EPAM, and more broadly in the technology consulting industry.