From corporate innovations to external talent procurement, Jane Kennedy has been making waves at Accenture for over 22 years. Today, she’s managing procurement strategy in the global external talent arena across more than 120 countries where Accenture serves clients.

As the external talent strategy director in Accenture’s Procurement Plus organization, Kennedy recently sponsored the deployment of a new vendor management system, granting her team and the company a deeper visibility into more types of talent. “We have a mature time and materials program, and we’re broadening to include other externals like service, deliverables and milestone workers,” Kennedy says.

As Covid-19 and the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine continued to cause business disruptions and created a new realm of challenges, Kennedy discovered an opportunity to learn more about team building in a virtual world. She also identified new opportunities to partner with third parties to build innovative solutions that not only meet current challenges but ultimately drive success by leveraging external talent to meet ongoing increases in demand for workers.