2022 Winner: Jessica Bevan, Tech Leader Award

Jessica is at the forefront of designing a target architecture for an international bank’s corporate banking channels; her designs are based on modern architectural patterns such as monolith strangulation for microservices and cloud native. She is a calm, logical and inclusive leader who has supported the development of next generation technology intakes and client facing teams throughout her consulting career.

Jessica leads the Women in Technology initiative within Capco UK, which galvanises the female talent and skills across the firm while creating an inclusive and diverse community. With a current membership of circa 70 women, across all levels and experiences within the firm, Jess heads a team of women and male advocates in creating and delivering new initiatives with better role opportunities, further enhancing HR policies, and driving monthly/quarterly events both inside and outside the firm. She has driven a series of key changes around policy and recruitment partnerships designed to broaden the opportunities available to women outside the firm, while also offering a lens on internal promotion through to its Return to Work community.

The community continues to grow at pace and plans to expand globally are in progress, based on the UK success, which has been evidenced by community feedback, attendance at events and regular updates via newly created channels. In addition to targeting women already established with technology or consulting careers, Jess – as a solution architect who made the move into the role from a successful career in business consulting and academia – has been tirelessly championing and supporting the female next generation intakes into Capco (new to consulting/finance) with PhD credentials.

Jessica has pulled together multiple areas of capability (HR, marketing, recruitment, DE&I) that support the inclusivity and diversity of the firm and driven a series of DE&I Listen Forums, which provide valuable insight to the wellbeing and development of the female talent at Capco. This has had a direct impact on current and future HR policies and the existing recruitment strategy targeted at Women in Technology.

A committed supporter of women in IT and technology, she has spoken at several Capco events and leads the engagement with external recruiting partners, such as Women in Tech and SheCanCode. The external partnerships that have been established will cement the firms’ credentials in the technology space for women and attract a broader senior female footprint to the firm. Her dedication to expanding Capco’s relationships to target new female talent benefits not just Capco but also its clients’ increasing desire to work with the breadth of diverse technology talent available in the market.

Her passion to develop her career in technology is demonstrated daily and her role model approach has inspired the new generation of women joining Capco in the technology space to find a supportive home to share skills/capabilities that match their technology aspirations. She is recognised and celebrated as a role model across the technology practice leadership team and wider Capco firm.

“Jess leads Women in Technology at Capco, she’s built a community for women in our firm from scratch, she’s run multiple events both social and career building events for people in that community, she’s building a network of allies for promoting the needs of women in the workforce, she’s created two new partnerships for us to help us hire new women technologists and leaders, and she’s done all of that side of desk holding down the fort as a solution architect working for one of the biggest commercial banks in the world. How she finds the energy and time to achieve so much, whilst also being a working mum, is something I cannot fathom, but am immensely grateful for.“

Chris Rahnejat, Executive Director, Capco