Follow Your Passion!
Interview with Connie Beck
Chair of the Board of Directors, Fellow
Australian Institute of Project Management
Graduate, Australian Institute of Company Directors
Member of the Executive Group, Urbis
Melbourne, Australia
Interviewed by Yasmina Khelifi
International Correspondent, PM World Journal
Paris, France
Introduction to the interviewee
Connie Beck has worked globally in the Information Technology industry for 25+ years across Consulting, Managed Services, M&A, Digital Transformations and Project/Portfolio Management.
She is a highly motivated strategic thinker, passionate about digital efficiency and embracing diversity and inclusion. She has extensive experience in managing large scale complex programs of work in digital transformation and driving innovation for stakeholders in C-suite roles across a plethora of industries in Government, Banking, Retail, FMCG, Manufacturing, Insurance, Utilities, Explosives, Agriculture, Fertiliser and Mining Industries.
Connie enjoys maintaining relevance in the industry as an active professional and is a registered Project Manager (RegPM), Certified Practising Portfolio Director (CPPD), and Fellow of the Australian Institute of Project Management as well as a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD). Currently the Chair of the Board for the Australian Institute of Project Management.
Connie is an accomplished digital, transformation and project management executive who specialises in equipping businesses with the capabilities needed to achieve their strategic objectives.
With her expertise centered around transforming technology as well as mining, and leveraging data that already exists within a company, Connie draws on her 20 years’ experience consulting to public and private organisations to drive growth through innovation.
An inclusive leader, she is adamant that digitisation should create efficiencies for clients as well as the business. She believes that real transformation only happens with both internal and external uplift, such as the streamlining of business operations and an unmatched client experience to transform the way we work in a smarter and more collaboratively way.
Based in Melbourne, Connie is a member of the Executive Group at Urbis where she manages the Technology, Transformation & Digital teams.
Interview
Q1: First, thank you for accepting an interview request from PMWJ. Congratulations for being the AIPM Chair of the Board of Directors and let’s dig deep. What are your ambitions for AIPM during your tenure?
Connie Beck (Beck): The AIPM has been an iconic part of our Australian project management community for a long time. Just reflecting back, our organisation was founded in 1976 as the Project Manager’s Forum. We started with just 250 members; today we have over 8,000 members.
My vision as Chair of the Board is to reinvigorate our strategy to expand and refresh where we are heading. To provide value to our members and our corporate sponsors, to develop our members in their professional expertise, to continue our unique competency-based certifications that assist many companies to hire capability for their organisations. I also believe that post pandemic, there is a newfound importance and significance for the purpose of project management profession and the key role that PMs play.
Q2: What evolutions do you foresee in the project management ecosystem in Australia?
Beck: It feels to me like we are experiencing the same rapid development of the fourth industrial revolution that was had in the 1950’s when project management tools were introduced with technology. Generative AI will play a significant efficiency role for project managers in the future due to its ability to process large datasets and patterns expeditiously. This can help project managers focus on more critical activities and assist with decision making. We all need to keep an open mind right now, however, there are still dark corners with generative AI so keeping this top of mind is key.
Q3: What do you think of the collaboration with other project management associations in Australia? And is it the case already?
More…
To read entire interview, click here
How to cite this work: Khelifi, Y. (2024). Follow Your Passion, Interview with Connie Beck, Chair of AIPM, PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue II, February. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/pmwj138-Feb2024-Khelifi-Interview-with-Connie-Beck-AIPM-Chair.pdf
About the Interviewer
Yasmina Khelifi
Paris, France
Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI- ACP, PMI-PBA is an experienced project manager in the telecom industry. Along with her 20-year career at Orange S.A. (the large French multinational telecommunications corporation), she sharpened her global leadership skills, delivering projects with major manufacturers and SIM makers. Yasmina strives for building collaborative bridges between people to make international projects successful. She relies on three pillars: project management skills, the languages she speaks, and a passion for sharing knowledge.
She is a PMP certification holder since 2013, a PMI- ACP and PMI-PBA certification holder since 2020. She is an active volunteer member at PMI France and PMI UAE, and a member of PMI Germany Chapter. French-native, she can speak German, English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and she is learning Arabic. Yasmina loves sharing her knowledge and experiences at work, in her volunteers’ activities at PMI, and in projectmanagement.com as a regular blogger. She is also the host and co-founder of the podcast Global Leaders Talk with Yasmina Khelifi to help people in becoming better international leaders.
Yasmina can be contacted at https://yasminakhelifi.com/ or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasminakhelifi-pmp-telecom/
Visit her correspondent profile at https://pmworldlibrary.net/yasmina-khelifi/
To view other works by Yasmina, visit her author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/yasmina-khelifi/
