Celebrating Our Consultant of the Year Winners 2022

Every year FDM presents the prestigious Consultant of the Year award to four exceptional consultants in recognition of their outstanding work at client sites. Diversity, equity and inclusion form the very ethos of FDM. We help people launch their careers in business and tech and remove barriers to employment based on social and cultural biases.

From graduates to career returners and ex-forces personnel, our different careers programmes are tailored for diverse groups of people to start or reset their careers. Our training offers a unique mix of instructor-led and project-based learning, soft skills, interview and CV prep. At the end of training, consultants are placed with some of our industry-leading clients and use their new skills on live projects.

We take great pride in recognising talent and watching them thrive in their new roles. This is why it gives us immense pleasure to announce our Consultant of the Year winners for 2022.

Jennifer Luo

Jennifer Luo graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce and Actuarial Studies. However, having worked on a few assignments at uni that required coding, she soon realised that her real interest was in tech.

She found FDM whilst looking for companies that were hiring graduates from different degrees and backgrounds and joined because FDM provided a platform for graduates who were passionate about technology but did not necessarily have the experience to reflect that.

Jennifer currently works as a site reliability engineer for a financial services company. ‘In our team, wearing many hats is par for the course. An SRE’s typical day involves incident management, identity and access management (IDAM) and project work. When we get alerted to a potential incident we want to be able to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.’

Her role entails learning a broad range of concepts and applications on a day-by-day basis and she acknowledges that the intensive FDM training prepared her for this challenge.

Her favourite thing about her role is the opportunity to learn something new every day which she believes allows her to develop both her personal and technical skills.

I was given the opportunity to work on and introduce a change freeze process which is still being developed, which I hope will help improve the stability of our production environment in the future.

Her top tip for anyone looking to enter a career in tech is –

Don’t be afraid to ask questions – no one knows everything, and tech is always developing and changing. Asking questions also pushes others to think creatively, which can lead to better solutions than if you had kept them to yourself.

Christopher Rice

Christopher Rice served in the British Army for 15 years before being untimely discharged on medical grounds. He joined FDM on the recommendation of an army friend who was employed with FDM at the time. Christopher is currently working as a scrum master for a national bank. 

Christopher joined the FDM Ex-Forces Advanced Programme during the COVID-19 pandemic in a cohort of 12 other colleagues. The course was fully remote and offered PSM1 (Professional Scrum Master 1) training and certification as well as CV and interview preparation. Christopher found this professional- skills training particularly useful as it allowed him to translate his military experience into corporate language. The PSM1 training was also beneficial for his current role as Scrum Master. He believes that the dedicated time he had in the FDM PODs with the opportunity to simulate Live in-house and role-specific scenarios prior to interviewing was instrumental in his success at landing the role.

One of the main highlights of Christopher’s current placement is his role as a volunteer to provide mental health training and guidance to his team which subsequently spread to the wider business area. Following his initiative Christopher has been selected as the Domain’s Wellbeing Champion, delivering both training and guidance on physical, mental and social wellbeing to 400 people. He attributes the success of this role to having good people skills and emotional intelligence – both of which he gained through his military service.

Christopher acknowledges FDM and the Ex-Forces team for being instrumental in his transition into civilian work. He recalls that being discharged from the military much earlier than he had anticipated, had left him anxious about his future. He adds that the FDM Ex-Forces team ensured he was fully aware of what to expect from them and in turn what was expected of him. He felt supported throughout his training with regular catch-ups with both the wider ex-forces team and his account manager.

His tip for those looking for a civilian role after the forces –

‘Do not fear that you do not have the knowledge needed to look into a career in tech. With the right attitude and support you can learn and thrive in a new and exciting industry where the avenues for progression are only limited by your aspirations.’

Marcin Lasek

Marcin pursued a degree in Information Systems before coming to FDM. He is currently working as a system administrator for a financial services company – his first ‘corporate’ job since graduating.

Marcin enjoyed his training at the FDM Academy, learning new content and refreshing his existing knowledge of other skills. He particularly mentions the Excel class during his training that he found very useful going into his new role.

‘FDM provided that connection that I never would have gotten otherwise if I did not go through the academy and I am very excited to have ended up a great company.’ 

A typical day for Marcin in his new role includes going through a wide range of admin requests submitted by anyone using Jira and/or Confluence. Requests could include the configuration of settings on projects, getting a new project created, and creating cool automation rules that run on projects among others.

Marcin’s favourite thing about his role is helping everyone that reaches out to him for questions as well as working with his colleagues. Coming into the office in the heart of downtown Chicago is another great bonus!

One top tip Marcin would provide for those looking for a career in tech is –

‘Don’t stop being curious. Always keep learning more about technology and how the processes businesses perform and technology, come together.’

Krishnan Moni

Krishnan Moni had an MSc in Data Analytics and five years’ experience working for a large management consulting firm as a Shift Operations Lead in India. But after completing his Masters, he moved to Canada. Keen to upskill his knowledge of new technologies, he found FDM and applied to the ITSM training programme as it was closely aligned with his academic and professional background.

Krishnan recalls that during the six weeks of training, every week he learnt new technologies. The group projects and tests helped his grasp the concepts better and demonstrate his understanding. He also mentions the usefulness of the Excel training.

analyse Excel data a lot in my role, so the FDM Excel training pack provides some great tips/techniques in cleaning/analysing Excel data. I always go back and refer to that which makes my job much easier on-site.

Krishnan got an opportunity to interview with his current client through FDM. Leading up to his interview, FDM helped him prepare with some mock technical/behavioural interviews with the trainers and provided tips and techniques to answer.  

He is currently working as a Business Analyst and there is no typical day in his role. Each day brings its own new challenges, learnings. There is a lot of collaboration and teamwork involved in every initiative, apart from individual contributions.

His favourite thing about his role is the camaraderie he shares with his team members and the support they provide to one another.

An interesting project that Krishnan worked on was introducing a sonic logo (jingle) for a client. He helped integrate that into the IVR system and On Hold Music so when customers called in, they would hear this jingle at the greeting stage and when their call was put On Hold.

His top tip for those looking to pursue a career in tech? 

‘Always be eager to learn new technologies and keep yourself updated on what is happening in the Tech world. Always be proactive in anticipating a problem and have a possible solution in mind. Take your own initiatives.’

You could be our next Consultant of the Year! Apply Now to start your journey into an exciting career in business and tech.