Throughout her 17-year career at Fujitsu, our 2020 everywoman in Tech Awards Leader of the Year, Wendy Warham has been promoted five times.
She’s also a champion of women and the female talent pipeline. Thanks to her efforts, more women have been recruited into Fujitsu and more than half of the UK’s major account teams are now led by females, leading her to be listed as a Financial Times Champion of Women in Business.
She gives us some valuable insight into how she makes it all happen…
What do you do in your role on a daily basis?
I look after strategic clients, so it’s my job to ensure that people are enabled to deliver what our customer needs – and they may be large technology and business change programmes – and also ensuring that our service delivery is consistent.
It’s my role to lead my teams to ensure we deliver key programmes and a reliable, consistent service. These services are usually critical to our customers’ businesses.
So I create the structure for my people to focus on what matters to the customer; I progress ideas, unblock issues and ensure that the business has the appropriate level of governance reviews in place.
The last year has been a bit exceptional because of Covid-19, so much of that was spent looking after people and making sure they were safe and well. As we locked down I ensured that my teams were settled and had what they needed to make that adjustment. This meant that they could continue to support our customer whilst feeling supported and cared for in the pandemic we found ourselves in.
What is the biggest misconception about your role or job function?
I own the customer relationship and because I’m the most senior representative of a customer, people often think I’m in sales. Plus, I’m in the middle of a big technical programme, so it’s often assumed that I’m ultra-technical. Obviously I’ve got good enough tech awareness, but not at the same level as a solution designer, for instance.
What are the core skills you use on a daily basis that are essential to your success — and how do you cultivate and expand on those skills?
I focus on the things I can influence and change, rather than the things I can’t do anything about, and that sets me up for the day. I work on what can make the biggest difference and that usually is what our customer needs and what my people need. I mentor, coach and encourage people to be brave and find the confidence to put their ideas and suggestions forward.
I think through challenges and how I might approach them. I take time to put myself in other people’s shoes so I can ask the right questions and then get behind what I call ‘the need behind the need’. Once I have that clarity, I lead the team to deliver. Skills such as influencing, communication, prioritisation, and planning also come in.
In terms of cultivating skills, I have a business coach, who I use to work on my resilience in particular. I’ve got some great techniques now to help me run with many complex things at the same time, enabling me to work on big chunky projects.
I’ve also been focusing on the whole holistic ‘me’, rather than just my work tools and techniques, and I vision forward to where I want to get to, in both my work and personal life.
What’s the biggest challenge you have in your role presently, and what’s your approach to meeting that challenge?
I’ve a number of large programmes that need to be delivered for the client over the next couple of years, and one of the biggest challenges is making sure that my people have the space to keep on delivering, because some of it requires new technologies, new skills and also keeping up with the customer-led change.
It’s my belief that people need encouragement to remain curious about change. As most businesses re-invest and adjust after Covid-19, my people need to remain relevant. Creating the environment for people to keep on learning is now crucial, so we’ve implemented a couple of new learning initiatives, which our people are enjoying.
I also show people what’s going on in the market so they can understand what’s relevant and what’s important for them to keep their career aspirations on track.
Thinking about your career going forward, how are you actively preparing to continue being successful?
I’m really curious, so I continue to learn and thoroughly enjoy it. I’m the Executive Sponsor for the Women’s Network; Chair for the D&I Council and Chair for the Responsible Business Board all at Fujitsu, and externally I sit on the BITC Global Leadership Team, so I’m connected and have a good range of work to keep me stimulated.
As I mentioned, I have a business coach so I’m always looking at what the next phase of my career is and what I need to do to make it happen. I keep reviewing that and put action plans in place to fulfil my aspirations.
What’s your number one ‘get that job’ tip that’s worked for you?
My few would be – choose your network really carefully; try and paint your vision about where you want to be, and be clear with yourself in terms of what outcome you want. When you’re going for a new role, put yourself in the shoes of your boss and identify their real need so that you both have clarity around what the role entails.
What’s been the biggest change in the tech industry since you launched your career?
The digital transformation journey for a lot of organisations has been on the agenda for quite a while; i.e. journey to the cloud and big data. The pace of that change in the last three years has been the fastest I’ve seen. A lot of new skills need to be embedded into technical teams, they’re all quite different and they’re here now, not coming along in a year’s time. There’s a massive evolution and it can be hard for people to keep on track with the pace of change.
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