Silvana Costantini
Senior Manager at Accenture
There was an expectation as Silvana grew up that she would remain within her own country. Though her exposure to the outside world was limited, she knew from a young age that she wanted to meet people from all over the world. This would eventually lead to a unique career managing IT systems across different countries and with many diverse groups of people.
Introduction
Silvana Costantini was born and raised in Argentina. Though she had no strong sense of what career she wanted, she had an interest in languages and told her mother at six years old that she wanted to learn English. She decided to study international trade for her undergraduate degree and was leaning towards working in diplomacy, but pivoted towards business and completed an MBA.
After many years in charge of the logistic department, she was offered to take over the post-implementation of SAP, finding the database customisation, software implementation process, and how one interacts with the system to be fascinating. While still rooting herself firmly in business, she now began to assimilate elements of computer science.
Within this role, still in the ‘90s, her local implementation of the company’s B2B platform lead to a job offer in Germany, where she continued to work on this topic but at a global level.
“Copy & Paste” Programmer
She developed her skills further and has built a strong understanding of the systems, but describes herself as a “Copy & Paste” programmer. She enjoys piecing code together though having less of an understanding of what happens at the very technical level. However, pushing her skills while remaining rooted in business has given her a much better understanding of IT systems and project management. She became a strong mediator between the realm of business and IT.
This led her to excel in digital project management, where she oversaw the software development, processes, and consultancy services required. She recently completed a PhD on the topic of project management methodologies, having developed a framework with which organisations can consider the risks involved. Appropriately, she is currently overseeing the development of software to implement this framework.
Computer Science is Broad
Computer science, for Silvana, is a very broad expertise. You have very different kinds of people, some are more business-oriented than others and she identifies the most with them. Others are purely focused on the technical aspects. You have to account for all these different types of people and work well with them.
She feels there are a huge amount of misconceptions around who works in IT. Some people box you in as someone who only works on technology, and others don’t peg you as a real person in computing. Since expanding her professional skills, she has never been a person working in a single area. She finds there are many interesting similarities between her different skills, especially with language.
Different Types of Languages
She has spent much time studying natural languages such as English, German, and French. A lot of the time, she will not fully understand exactly what someone says but will be able to understand the patterns behind it and infer. She believes this same line of thinking can apply to programming languages.
“In computer science, there are languages too. In any language, whether you’re speaking it or programming with it, there are certain patterns to find and processes to follow.”
Much of Silvana’s time in project management has been spent relaying information to other countries, taking care of the technical aspect but still dealing primarily with people. She believes that her background has wholly helped in these regards, having worked across many departments in the USA, China, and South America. Having experience across the board has been invaluable for her to see the bigger picture in the projects that she manages, something she would not have had if she stayed within one area.