We catch up with Anouska Fox one year on...

Here's me, listening intently,
 at IT's not just for the boys! back in 2013

Name: Anouska Fox
Job Title: Graduate Consultant
Company: SunGard
Event attended: IT's not just for the boys! - October 2013
University: University of Manchester

I attended IT’s Not just for the Boys 2013 event; a few months later the graduate recruiter for SunGard contacted me to encourage me to apply and I applied for a consultancy role in Energy Trading & Risk Management. You can read about that part of my story here!

A year on and I’ve now been in the role 5 months – during which I had a two month comprehensive training programme on the software, financial markets and European Gas & Power markets which allowed me to develop a great breadth of knowledge. After training I began work on the ETRM implementation for a major Scandinavian energy company where I focussed on designing and building interfaces between our ETRM system and third party software.

I’ve loved working at SunGard so far, I’ve been given responsibility since the day I completed the training, personally owning designs and responsibility for build and testing. I’ve found it to be a really welcoming and open company; no one is ever too busy to share knowledge and it’s a really social environment.

I’d completed a few work experience placements during school and university – and while I’d really encourage these as an opportunity to gain insight into an industry you may want to work in – I still had no idea what to expect from my daily role. In consultancy your tasks are often highly dependent on the phase of the project; during discovery I’ll be conducting business analysis to determine the clients requirements, design is where the solution is determined and then build and test you are bringing this idea into fruition!

My role is within the technical team but I only spend about 20% of my time doing traditionally technical work such as coding – although I have gotten the chance to learn Groovy and SQL.  One of the things I enjoy the most is the collaboration with other project team members and the client; you have to really understand the businesses operations and requirements from the system. Drilling into client’s requirements and determining the best configuration is my favourite aspect of the job. It is important to stay aware of what the other team members are doing or you will not understand the project at a high level.

Outside of your day-to-day role I’ve also found there’s loads of other great stuff to get involved with, I’ve helped organise socials to outdoor ice-skating, drinks and the ping pong bar Bounce! We’re also organising the first International Women’s Day for SunGard London, where we’re going to have a Senior Women in Technology panellist session – coming full circle back to IT’s not just for the Boys!

Attend the next IT's not just for the boys! on March 20, and we could be posting your success blog this time next year!