Gabriela Vasilica, Romania Finance and Accounting Lead – Accenture Romania
My name is Gabriela Vasilica, and I’ve been with Accenture since 2011. In 2019, I became responsible for managing the Intelligent Finance Operations division in Romania, which delivers finance and accounting services in the BPS industry for multinational clients. With a large and scalable team, we’ve established a predictable and measurable way of working in order to deliver value-added services.
My career started in a telecom company 22 years ago, in a credit control department. It was a totally new world for me after graduating from ASE with a marketing specialization and managing some junior roles in small, local businesses. During those times, I’ve discovered about myself that I liked working in a professional environment that offers clear targets, ensures fair competition, and creates the context for resolving complex situations and handling different economic operations. I’m naturally inclined towards helping others, and this, as well as curiosity, pushed me to participate in an internal contest for a team leader of 10 people in bad debt collections department (which, by the way, I won and made me very proud 😊). That first opportunity to be a people lead in my professional career showed me that relationships can change: it’s quite challenging to go from casually sharing a meal with someone today to giving them feedback on improvement areas tomorrow. It was a difficult but welcomed lesson for the years to come. Another important lesson I learned during that time is that, even though I find it difficult to get out of my comfort zone, embracing change usually leads to better developing opportunities.
The big step in my career path was when I developed from a team lead to managing over 100 people. Therefore, I’ve worked with different profiles and experienced various opportunities and business contexts, all of which helped me more easily accommodate and successfully meet the challenges of a multinational environment in a challenging industry such as outsourcing. I can say that this industry is one of the most dynamic and generous industries, allowing any professional to evolve and equip with new skills.
Accenture is one of the largest players in this area and was the No. 1 Most Desired Employer in BPS & Shared Services in Romania in 2021 and 2022. I can totally back this up with my personal story with the company: from the beginning, I felt like home, and my colleagues are my family. It’s a very inclusive environment, where you can truly be yourself, and there’s always going to be someone (maybe it’s your manager, your colleague, or your HR business partner) who cares about you, your moments of weakness, joy, or celebration, but most importantly, your career.
In these 12 years, I’ve gathered experience in different management roles in delivery areas with various scalabilities and phases; working from architecting a future contract to building large or small teams capable of delivering long-term contracts. And my constant focus was on my teams and how to guide them to adapt to each different context.
If I would go back to my first workplace, knowing what I know now, I would be more interested in taking on challenges and looking for people capable of sharing with me their areas of improvement. This could have guided me to explore situations that allowed me to break down barriers, personal limitations and fears. It’s not easy, but it’s how we can grow in the end.
Accenture offers me the chance to do what I like and know best: I am a developer, and I have a realtor profile. I easily see potential in people, how a career can be built, and which strengths need to be developed. This is fundamental for our clients too, since they are always looking for expertise and maturity. I like to take initiative, develop relationships while connecting easily, and work successfully with people through honest and open discussions.
After a career of 22 years, I can definitely say that discovering myself by taking on challenges and experiences that would develop my strengths was my best project ever. Our working culture is strongly focused on wellbeing, and this helped me balance work with my personal life. I like to travel and discover nature, and more specifically, I love hiking and climbing peaks, both during the summer and especially in the winter. Those unique moments spent with myself give me the time to think, to be with myself, to breathe and meditate, but also to test my limits and see always that the mind is the only real blocker. I love to be around my family and close friends while sipping good wine and sharing personal moments and experiences.
The world is changing, the business environment is becoming more agile and fast. Be curious, authentic, share thoughts, ideas, but pay attention to the way you do it, consider others and their emotions too. Ask questions and try to understand where you are, what you do, why, and how you can do it differently. Challenge yourself, and be aware that when it hurts, you grow significantly.
Take ownership of your career development and avoid being just an observer on how time is passing by.