Abby Ewen, IT director at law firm Simmons & Simmons, is
what you might call a "people person". Of course, she can talk bits
and bytes when she has to. But when it comes to understanding what
makes a great manager - and what powers an IT career forward - she
realised long ago that it was working effectively with other people
that mattered most.
"I think people management skills are absolutely essential," she
says. "They are among those leadership qualities that allow you to
make sure that when you're heading in a strategically important
direction everyone in your department is behind you - not because
they have to be but because they want to be."
As Ewen has discovered, getting on with people in all parts of
an organisation makes a great foundation stone when building an IT
career. "I think it's very important that you make yourself known
to people so that when opportunities arise, you're the first person
they think of.
"I'd advise any person embarking on a career in IT to be
willing, flexible and work hard - but it's partly about being in
the right place at the right time. And, sometimes, you can engineer
those right places and right times - not in a manipulative way, but
by developing trusted working relationships with people. It's not
all outside of your control."
Ewen has certainly shown that she's got talent when it comes to
that right place and time engineering. She started her career as a
legal executive, one of the non-commissioned officers of the legal
world who support solicitors in their work. Most of her time was
spent on conveyancing work. But this was in the early 1990s and
when the property market crashed, there was less conveyancing and
her employers decided they didn't need so many legal executives.
Wrong place, wrong time.
But, as chance had it, the previous personnel director had moved
to law firm Withers. Ewen phoned her and landed a job as PA to one
of the firm's corporate partners. After 18 months, she tried for a
job in the IT department, working on a mixture of support and
training. Right place, right time.
"There was one person in the department who handled the
technical side of things, but there wasn't anybody who did the
training," Ewen recalls. It was, as it turned out, an excellent
time and place to be starting a career in IT. The firm was moving
from a central Unix system with terminals to embrace the PC
revolution.
"I was thrown in at the deep end in a project that set out to
equip everybody in the firm - about 250 people from lawyers to
secretaries - with PCs," Ewen says. Her job was to handle the
training side of the operation, a strong people-facing role.
In fact, the role rapidly grew. Ewen ended up working with
suppliers of a new practice management system, the desktop
environment, word processing and e-mail (which the firm hadn't had
until now). It was a lot to take on board very quickly for somebody
who'd previously had no professional contact with IT.
"I learnt very fast and I worked very hard," Ewen recalls. But
the old right time and place magic was still there. Because she'd
been working in the firm's corporate department, she knew the
partner in charge of IT - and, more to the point, he knew her
capabilities. "He trusted me and effectively put me in charge of
the whole thing," she says. "But it was a massive ordeal by
fire."
But, then, that could also be another lesson for younger IT
professionals wondering how to propel their career forward. The
people who advance are those who are prepared to take on new
challenges, even though they may seem daunting.
Certainly, Ewen never ducked a challenge during her 10 years
with Withers - and there were plenty of them. She rarely stayed in
the same IT role for more than a few months but constantly sought
out fresh experiences. As she did so, she was doing two things -
building up her CV and developing a range of contacts that were key
in helping her to reach the top IT slots in two big law firms. She
finished at Withers as IT manager.
Then came another change. She left to have a baby - Charlie, who
is now nearly five. It's not easy for a woman in IT to have a
family and a high-flying career, she admits. But she says, "I think
women are good at compartmentalising the different parts of their
lives."
One essential was a good and flexible nanny. "It was very
important to me when I came back to work that I could leave the
house in the morning and not have to worry about my son until I got
home in the evening," she says. And it wasn't long before Ewen was
plunged back into IT - the old right place and time engineering
hadn't deserted her. Before taking time out to have Charlie, she'd
filled in six months as interim IT operations manager at Simmons
& Simmons.
Now the firm's CIO asked her back as full-time systems
development manager, a role that involved running the global
systems infrastructure, development, business analysis and project
management. She spent the better part of three years developing the
role before moving up to become IT director, effectively CIO.
Ewen believes law firms are a good place to build an IT career.
"You get a certain set of skills that are transferable outwards. I
think it's harder to acquire skills outside a law firm that are
transferable inwards."
There's a good reason for that - a law firm is structured as a
partnership. At Simmons & Simmons, each of the 220-plus
partners has an equal say in the development of the firm.
Effectively, that means - in management-speak - that Ewen has
220-plus stakeholders, all keenly interested in the effectiveness
and quality of the IT services her team is able to deliver. And
although law firms may have been later on parade than some other
businesses when it came to harnessing IT, there is now no doubt
that a global operation, such as Simmons & Simmons, is highly
reliant on its systems.
"Of course, you need all the generic qualities that you would
expect in a senior IT role, such as general management ability,
leadership and strategic thinking," says Ewen. "But with so many
stakeholders, you also need to be good at diplomacy and managing
priorities by business need."
And this is where those people skills really come into their
own. So what's the secret of connecting with other people - both
inside the IT department and outside it? "One of the techniques
I've always used is to focus on something that you have in common
with an individual," Ewen says. "But you should never do this in a
cynical way. It's about identifying a shared interest - it could be
anything from your respective children to football - and using that
as a common point of reference.
"You need to talk other people's language. I can have nerdy
conversations with the best of them, but I can also have strategic
conversations. And I think that part of being a good manager is
being able to make the quantum leap between high-level and
low-level subjects. I actually think that's one of the things that
keeps your brain quite sharp as well.
"I don't know whether you'd call that a management technique or
a just good human nature. It's a lot easier for me now, because I
can use my position to help build relationships. Going back 10
years, it was slightly harder. But if you can gain people's trust
and their willingness to communicate back with you, it's amazing
what can come up in those conversations."
And how you can advance.
STEPPING STONES
1986: Left Chelmsford College of Further Education with legal
executive qualifications.
1987: Joined Bischoff & Co as a legal executive.
1992: Joined law firm Withers as training manager and progressed
through successive promotions to posts as support manager and
project manager.
2000: Gained BSc(Hons) in technology management and systems
practice from Open University.
2000: Appointed IT manager at Withers with responsibility for
planning, maintaining and developing the firm's IT function.
2002: Joined top 10 law firm Simmons & Simmons in an interim
role as IT operations manager.
2003 (January): Left Simmons & Simmons to have a son.
2003 (August): Rejoined Simmons & Simmons as systems
development manager.
2006: Became IT director at Simmons & Simmons.
EWEN'S CURRENT ROLE
• Abby Ewen runs a global IT function with 92 people, of whom 77
are based in the UK. The remainder are in Rotterdam, Paris, Lisbon,
Dubai and Hong Kong.
• To help her run the IT function, Ewen has seven direct
reports. Four of these are in London. There is a chief technology
officer in charge of research and development and future technology
strategy.
• A chief service delivery officer runs the service desk,
training and operational administration.
• A chief service support officer is in charge of the
infrastructure including the wide area and local area networks.
• Finally, a chief IT relationship officer is, effectively,
Ewen's "globe-trotting troubleshooter". He recently helped to move
the Dubai and Madrid offices and set up a new office in Moscow.
• Outside the UK, Ewen has direct reports managing devolved IT
operations in Rotterdam, Lisbon and Hong Kong.