In her nine years at the head of data analytics consulting business Exposé, Kelly Drewett has learned the power of the people in a technical industry.
On the latest episode of the techpartner.news podcast, Drewett explained her people-focused approach to leadership, from a focus on company culture to making sure soft skills are baked into her hiring practices.
In 2016, data analytics was growing rapidly and Drewett saw the opportunity for an Australian company to step into the space.
“I went to my employer at the time and said, ‘I've got this idea’, and they said, ‘look, we don't think there's a need for it in the market right now’.”
Instead of heeding that advice, Drewett reached out to some other industry contacts and soon after, Exposé was born.
“Fortunately, it paid off. We went from five people in 2016 to over 60 now and have just previously been acquired last year by a global IT consulting business.”
Achieving that growth has taken a concerted effort, Drewett said, particularly in establishing a company culture that inspires high performance.
“From day one at Exposé, when we were still building our culture and our brand, it was very important for us to always be transparent, open and honest, and hold each other accountable.”
She highlighted that this was not a one-way conversation but that everyone was encouraged to call out when they thought others, even Drewett herself, was not upholding one of the company values.
“Sometimes telling the truth can be hard but we learn from it and we've continued that all the way through … everyone should be held accountable and everyone should be, not told off, but asked to stop and rethink so that we can be better people, better consultants.”
This dedication to strong communication skills is also reflected in Exposé’s approach to hiring.
Drewett said that soft skills, which she describes as “the ability to communicate in various forms”, are fundamental for consultants in a technical field.
“You could be the most incredible developer, for example, technically, but if you can't understand that business problem and you can't articulate that back to a client, whether that's through consulting or whether you have an internal client for your employer, if you can't do that, you are missing the really important piece.”
Drewett said that this approach can make finding talent even more difficult in an already constrained environment but that it’s a requirement to stand out in the contemporary IT services industry.
As business needs and technologies are increasingly complicated and intertwined, the days of someone who would go between the technical worker and the client are dwindling, she argues.
“It is so incredibly important for a technical person to understand that business problem instead of having to try and get it relayed back from someone else. We are trying to eliminate all of those different possibilities of an error or a miscommunication happening.”
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