Rhonda Gallion

I attribute my success to the collective support, mentorship, and guidance I have received throughout my journey rather than any single factor. While my grit, determination, and work ethic have been important, I believe they are strengthened by the many people who have invested in me, encouraged me, and helped shape my path. My achievements are ultimately a reflection of the individuals who have supported, challenged, and believed in me along the way.

The best advice I've received is that it's not about the destination. Your career should not be focused on one singular position or achievement, because your career is not linear, and it is not the accomplishment of just one thing - it's the accomplishment of many, many things. If you restrict yourself to just one outcome or one goal, you'll miss out on a lot of fun. The idea is to stay curious, stay humble, and stay flexible, and try things, as opposed to just going down one path. This advice was given to me early on when I first went into the consulting world and was very focused on just going forward and getting promoted as fast as possible. The individual who gave me this advice asked, 'Okay, so when you achieve that goal, now what? You still have 20 or 30 more years to entertain yourself, so now what are you gonna do?' And I thought, well, I don't know. That really opened my eyes to the importance of not limiting myself to a single destination.

I have told young women to be fearless. I've told them to be open to taking all of the risks that they want to take - calculated risks, of course, not being reckless - but leveraging all the people around you, and not being afraid to ask for what you want and ask for help. I don't think that we teach young women how to effectively network soon enough. The sooner that you learn how to do that in a more natural way that's authentic to you, the opportunities present themselves. So my advice is: be fearless, take calculated risks, leverage your support network, ask for what you want, ask for help, and learn to network effectively and authentically as early as possible.

In the world of technology consulting and technology solution-based consulting for third-party clients, I think the challenges are the opportunities. Using AI as an example, it's everywhere, it's everything everyone's talking about. The challenge is helping clients to dispel and dissect and break down what it means for them and how it's useful for them and their organization - how to use technology to solve business problems and drive tangible results. It's a big challenge because it's a big learning curve for so many organizations in various stages of their growth journeys. At the same time, that presents a great deal of opportunity for us to come in and be the thought leaders, be the partners, be what they need to move forward. Many of the efforts and problems to be solved are expensive and labor-intensive - they're not easy, quick things. So it really takes a dedicated effort and a consistent effort of partnering with your clients so that they have comfort that you're in it with them, and you can go down that journey together. The relationship piece is incredibly important, but it's also about maintaining that in a world where tech is changing constantly and everything is moving so fast - keeping everything at a reasonable pace. We're all ingesting technology, and I feel like we're also rejecting it at the exact same time. It's kind of fascinating. It's an exciting time.

I think I'm very fortunate in that I've always had a very strong support network and support structure. Maintaining and cultivating and caring for that support network has always been a very top priority - you have to feed it the way it feeds you. Having that support network allows me to be independent, curious, and fearless. I know that I can go fly, and if I crash, there's still a team back at home that will give me a "high 5" for trying. So I think it's the curiosity, it's the independence, it's the fearlessness - the willingness to take a risk and try something. That to me is what truly, truly motivates me. And then I think at the end of the day, it's probably why I've spent as much time in consulting as I have, or more so than on the inside of a company - it's just the satisfaction that comes when you've helped someone solve something, or you've helped someone do more than they could have done on their own. And you can see a very quick direct impact of the effort that you put in. Certainly that comes with a lot of work and a lot of effort, but to me, that's fulfilling, because you can actually see the impact that you've had on positively moving something forward for someone else.