Sharon Bevis-Hoover is not fazed by the fact that she is
starting her new job as director of IT transformation at Coca-Cola
on 1 April. As London-based Europe Group CIO for the world's most
famous drinks maker since 2007, she has already proved she is no
fool.
Muhtar Kent, who became Coca-Cola's chief executive last year,
wants the company to sharpen its competitive edge. That ambition,
says Bevis-Hoover, has spawned a number of priority IT projects.
She is returning to Coca-Cola's Atlanta head office to take charge
of IT change aimed at supporting transformation in the rest of the
company.
"I will be looking to see how the IT function globally needs to
transform itself in order to continue bringing value to the
company," she says.
The experiences she has accumulated in her career make her an
ideal choice for the post. And that career is also packed with
lessons which other IT professionals could take on board if they
fancy themselves as high-flying IT professionals in a famous
international company.
Get a head-start
The daughter of a university professor in maths and IT,
Bevis-Hoover was destined for a computing career. "I was playing
with computers when they went ching, ching, ching," she jokes.
She got into computing during her own college years studying
economics and mathematics when a local bank came recruiting for an
employment programme.
Bevis-Hoover worked part-time during term and full-time during
the holidays so that when she graduated she already had nearly
three years' IT experience - putting her ahead of the pack of new
graduates seeking IT jobs.
But it is how she used that head-start to build her career where
the most valuable lessons lie. After three years gaining a solid
grounding in programming and systems analysis at Trusco Data
Systems, she became an IT contractor.
It was, she admits, partly a lifestyle choice. And why not? "I
wanted to be able to travel and scuba dive. The advantage of
contracting was that it was based on assignments."
But her decision was about more than just having a great
lifestyle.
"Contracting was fascinating because I got to work in lots of
different industries. I saw many different technologies and met
many different people. It was perfect."
The first couple of years in contracting took her round US
corporate behemoths such as General Electric and Kimberly-Clark,
providing a fascinating insight into how large organisations
work.
Bevis-Hoover argues that a spell in contracting helps somebody
new to IT find out what they want from their career.
"If you join a company straight from university, the risk is
that you see only one company's view of the world," she says. "When
you go contracting, you gain a variety of experiences so that you
can look at a number of different organisations and business models
and learn about what you would like to do."
It means that when you start to build a career in a company, you
have a broader range of experiences to draw on, she says. And, as
Bevis-Hoover's own career testifies, it may even help you to find
the organisation in which you want to build your career.
Her first brush with Coca-Cola was through a contracting
assignment. She proved her worth in this project and it led on to
more. She ended up working in a wide variety of contracting roles
at Coca-Cola for seven years.
Prove your worth
There is an important lesson here, too. Organisations like to
retain people who prove useful to them. Demonstrate that you can
add value and the terms of trade between you, as an employee, and
your potential employer change. It is a lesson that could be
critical as the recession bites deeper. Those who are adding the
most value in the IT function will not be joining the queue at the
Job Centre.
After seven years working as a contractor, Bevis-Hoover accepted
a staff post within Coca-Cola. She became a senior IS account
manager responsible for running a compliance team. She says she
decided to sign up with Coca-Cola at that point in her career
because she needed a new challenge.
She recalls, "I felt that I had demonstrated that I could run a
project, that I could do change management, that I could automate
business processes and even improve them. But what I was not doing
in my contracting role was a lot of people management. I was
managing people on projects but not from a broader administrative
and organisational point of view."
The ability to run a team - in fact, to lead a team - is a key
skill for any IT professional aiming for the top of a big company.
Managers deliver results by harnessing the combined skills of their
teams.
It was not long before Bevis-Hoover was proving her value inside
Coca-Cola, just as she had done outside as a contractor. Promotions
came regularly every few years, a sure sign that her bosses were
impressed by what she was delivering.
There are key milestones in any career, although they may seem
like milestones only when looking back. At the time, they appear as
challenges. One of Bevis-Hoover's milestones came in 2005 when she
became IT director for Coca-Cola's Iberia division. "It was my
first move from the corporate centre to a field organisation," she
says. "Most corporate centres get a bit disconnected from the way a
company achieves its success in the field.
"Being closer to the actual operation in any organisation is a
tremendous learning experience. Even if you have a conceptual
awareness, there is nothing like getting closer to gain a better
sense of reality."
Working in Iberia was an exciting opportunity to work in a
different culture. "It is important to be sensitive when working in
a new culture," she advises. "There is a lot to be learned from
different ways of doing things."
Bevis-Hoover's success in the Iberian division made her a
natural choice when Coca-Cola needed a new CIO for its Europe
Group, covering 29 countries, in 2007. In the two years she has
been in post, she carried out a restructuring plan for the IT
function and brought it closer to the rest of the business. Now she
is being called on to weave her IT transformation magic on
Coca-Cola's global IT.
Embrace change
One quality shines through in Bevis-Hoover's career and she sums
it up like this, "I love change."
In a world that is changing faster than ever before (and not
always for the better), a willingness - even an eagerness - to
embrace change will increasingly mark out IT professionals destined
for the most senior posts.
"Some of us seem to enjoy change for change's sake," says
Bevis-Hoover. "There are others that need to know why it is
necessary to change. What that means is that when you are leading
change in an organisation, you need to paint the big picture. You
need to spell out the reasons for change and the benefits that will
flow from it."
It is a technique that you can apply to yourself if you are
fearful of change, suggests Bevis-Hoover. "Think very deliberately
about what would be the benefits of making the proposed changes on
your own career and life."
Bevis-Hoover's role
As transformation director of Coca-Cola, Bevis-Hoover will work
from the company's headquarters in Atlanta.
In her role as CIO of the EU group, Bevis-Hoover headed an
internal team of 52 people working from eight European
locations.
Routine tasks such as service desk, back-office operations and
some application production support are managed by internal and
external service providers.
CV: Sharon Bevis-Hoover
1981: Leaves university in the US with economic
and mathematics degree and takes a job as a computer
programmer/analyst with Trusco Data Systems, part of Trust Company
Bank.
1984: Starts working as a computer consultant,
initially for General Electric Professional Services Company, then
other US-based firms.
1985: Takes on first consulting assignment with
Coca-Cola. In the next seven years handles technical, procurement,
legal and human resources projects.
1992: Joins staff of Coca-Cola in the US as
senior IS account manager, initially working on compliance
projects.
1994: Begins a series of increasingly senior
jobs with Coca-Cola: IS account group manager, programme director
of the technical division and science division, programme director
for business systems and information infrastructure.
2002: Appointed director, application portfolio
for innovation, science and quality, then moves to take application
portfolio directorships first for finance and corporate support,
and then finance, HR and shared services.
2005: Moves to Spain to become IT director of
Coca-Cola's Iberia division. Leads major change programme.
2007: Appointed CIO of the Europe Group of
Coca-Cola and implements major restructuring.
2009: Takes up post as global transformation
director for Coca-Cola.