"Tech Champions" with Joe Shepley from Ankura Consulting

Each week on “Tech Champions,” our host Daniel Beaty sits down with experts in the information technology world. This week, Daniel spoke to Joe Shepley from Ankura Consulting.

Ankura Consulting is an industry leading advisory consulting firm headquartered in Washington D.C. with more than 1,550 professionals in 37 global offices. Whether a client is facing an immediate challenge to its business, trying to opportunistically increase the value of their company, or protect against future risks, Ankura designs, develops, and executes tailored solutions by assembling the right combination of expertise.

To learn more, visit https://ankura.com.

Short company description:

Ankura Consulting is an industry leading advisory consulting firm headquartered in Washington D.C. with more than 1,550 professionals in 37 global offices. Whether a client is facing an immediate challenge to its business, trying to opportunistically increase the value of their company, or protect against future risks, Ankura designs, develops, and executes tailored solutions by assembling the right combination of expertise.

What was your first role in the technology field?:

I worked at Kaplan Professional in the early 2000s as an editor and taught myself how to code (first VB6 then Java), which allowed me to move into IT as a business analyst and project manager.

What IT project are you most proud of?:

I led an engagement to redesign the product development process for a large manufacturer, which included a ground-up re-design of the target SharePoint environment and using file analytics to find legacy content, enrich it with metadata, and migrate it to the new environment. It was nearly a 24-month effort involving 50+ stakeholders globally and was an absolute success for the client.

What is the biggest challenge that IT departments are facing today?:

Information management.

Who is someone you would consider a mentor?:

Chris Cotteleer. He was a partner at the first consulting firm I worked for. He helped me make the transition from corporate IT to consulting and really taught me what it meant to be a true consultant and serve clients.