By AWE Staff
Margaret Corporate Photo
Margaret Smith is Executive Director Contract Management and Transaction Contracting, and Managing Director Operations Legal at Accenture, where she began her career learning to code twenty-six years ago. Her tenure at the global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company has led her to Washington, DC, London, Norway, Istanbul and New York where she has worked in a number of roles across Accenture’s consulting and outsourcing businesses, including delivery, operational and commercial roles.
Prior to her current role in 2004, she was asked to take on leadership for a significant expansion of their commercial and contract management capability, reflecting the change in Accenture’s mix of business and increasing proportion of outsourcing and fixed price contracts. The contract management group was then 60 people focused predominantly on the public service sector, it is now made up of more than 1,200 professionals and supports all Accenture’s major commercial and public sector contracts and provides service in more than 40 geographies from both in-country teams and a network of offshore service centers. This expansion has given Margaret experience in how to build a strong management team, quickly develop skills and create a single team with a common goal across all of the geographies that the team supports. In addition, Margaret is increasingly asked to advise Accenture’s commercial and public sector clients on best practices in contract management.
She was asked in 2012 to expand her role to become the director of operations across the legal group managing forecasting, budgeting, technology, communications, outside counsel management, metrics and reporting. In addition in 2013, she was asked to build and lead a new contracting function within the Legal group supporting the majority of Accenture’s non-complex transactions. That group is now over 100 strong with a mix of onshore and cost effective location staff supporting Accenture’s non-complex contracting needs.
Margaret is also an ambassador to Accenture’s commitment to women and supports a range of women’s programs and initiatives including mentoring, training and development courses. Women represent 36 percent of Accenture’s workforce and four in 10 of Accenture’s new hires are women. In Margaret’s team 60 percent are women – one of the largest percentages for a client facing team at the company. She has also been recognized within the learning community for her contract management women’s leadership series earning a Bronze Brandon Hall award for best use of blended learning.
In 2009, Margaret was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Association of Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM) and named an honorary Fellow. She was elected Chairwoman in 2012 and continues in that capacity today. Margaret splits her time between New Jersey in the U.S. and York in the U.K. with her husband and four sons. She received her BBA and MBA from the George Washington University Business School in Washington, DC.