Thanks to Sean Kenny for taking time to share his advice for people who want to work for Dufrain and the importance of internal communication. Sean has been a Senior Manager at Dufrain for over two years and offers an insight into his life and role at Dufrain. Read his thoughts below.
1. Tell us a little bit about what you do?
I’m a Senior Manager at Dufrain, and my role requires me to wear several different hats. My main focus is on client delivery at one of our Large UK banking clients where I have been working on a financial crime project for the last five years. My roles have varied, from being a technical lead to a platform owner. It’s been a really fun project where I have learnt a lot as well as having a great team working with me.
Internally within Dufrain, I’m involved in several initiatives. One of my main focuses is around the internal communication strategy for the company. When I was given this focus, communication wasn’t as good as it could be. Since then myself & the team have built various communication channels including our own internal channel called ‘DufTube’. In addition to, we’ve started an innovation think tank where we try to solve common business problems, and introduced the “Dufrain Speaker Series”, bringing in external presenters for topics that resonate with our day-to-day work. We had a presentation last month on data culture from Sam at N Brown Group which went down really well with our consultants.
I also serve as the chair for our consultant operations forums. My responsibilities here include ensuring that projects are run correctly, tracking risk/issues, and focusing on resourcing, recruitment and retention. This means allocating the right people to the right projects, targeting recruitment to meet our needs, and making sure that our consultants are happy, engaged, and well-supported.
I’m heavily involved in the account management of a few of our key Clients. This involves providing support for consultants working across different projects, ensuring success in delivery, managing billing, and reaching out to clients to see what more value we could provide. My responsibilities also extend to pre-sales, engaging with potential clients, and promoting the Dufrain brand in new industries and sectors.
2. Can you tell us a few details about the favourite part of your job?
My favourite part of the job at Dufrain, where I’ve been for nearly 7 1/2 years, has always been the people that we work with. Starting as a Consultant and making my way up to Senior Manager, I’ve found that the relationships with colleagues has always been the most rewarding aspect. Being in an environment where we all push each other to achieve the best, and having good relationships with many consultants within Dufrain, allows me to be challenged and approachable as a senior leader. I can engage opinions from people at any grade within Dufrain to help influence decisions, and this focus on people has remained constant.
As Dufrain has evolved from being primarily a SAS consultancy to now a fully-fledged consultancy with expertise in data engineering, visualisation, data strategy, and data management, I’m constantly learning from those around me. This breadth of expertise and experience we bring in continues to make me a better Senior Manager, and that growth and collaboration are what I value most in my role.
3. Which company value resonates with you the most?
Out of all the company values at Dufrain, the one that resonates with me the most is “get busy living.” While I appreciate all our values, this one stands out because people interpret it differently, and it has an interesting history originating from the Shawshank Redemption.
For me, “get busy living” encompasses doing our absolute best for our clients, who are always our number one priority. Whether we’re solving a problem, building something new, or providing strategic direction, our focus must be on delivering the best outcomes.
But “get busy living” also emphasises the importance of supporting each other as consultants. At Dufrain, we celebrate our successes, and there’s no shame in asking for help if things aren’t going well. The collaboration and support within the company are unlike what I’ve seen elsewhere. In our organisation, it’s about working together, delivering for our clients, and being there for one another. I believe this value truly encapsulates what makes Dufrain special.
4. What would you say has been your most significant achievement or the one you are most proud of whilst working at Dufrain?
I think my proudest achievement as a consultant at Dufrain is how I’ve often been thrown into the deep end of projects, whether it’s rescuing something that’s not going well or starting on a project and then seeing it through to its completion. Our CEO emphasised the importance to me of gaining experience in seeing something from start to finish, and my most recent project exemplifies this.
I served as the platform lead for a customer due diligence platform, beginning with a meeting in a room filled with 15 to 20 experienced people. Together, we drew out a high solution to solve a specific regulatory problem for this large UK bank, all before Zoom and Teams were widely used. Being in that room was an immense privilege, especially since many of those present had deeper domain knowledge than I did at the time.
From there, I built a team from scratch, developing a recruitment plan, hiring consultants from Dufrain and other organisations, interviewing permanent staff, and managing an annual budget of around £3m. Translating high-level requirements into Epics and user stories, we went through the development lifecycle, going from no code to thousands of lines of code. This culminated in various microservices deployed into a live system that will monitor c1m customers by the end of the year.
Seeing this project from being in that room to successfully go live is probably my biggest achievement in my career at Dufrain thus far.
5. Which work perk is your favourite and why?
I would say that’s a tough one to choose from. While benefits like pension or private healthcare are significant, I’ll have to single out birthday leave as my favourite perk at Dufrain. I think it’s one of those unique and thoughtful benefits.
When you have an annual leave allocation, it’s common to find an excuse not to take your birthday off, often saving the leave for holidays or other planned activities. Now that I have a child, my leave is mostly dictated by family plans, so the fact that I can always count on having my actual birthday off (or a day close to it) feels like a special treat.
Birthday leave is a really good perk, something that sets Dufrain apart from many other organisations. It adds a personal touch to the benefits package, and I appreciate the opportunity to enjoy that time in a way that’s meaningful to me.
6. What’s the best advice you can give to someone who wants to work for us?
The best advice I would give is to be curious. I think a lot of people are hesitant when they join a new organisation to ask questions or question how something has been done in the past. However, at Dufrain, we welcome questions and fresh new ideas. It’s what keeps us current, innovative, and constantly evolving.
If everyone accepted the status quo and didn’t bring in their unique experiences and values from previous roles, we would become stagnant and quite a monotonous place to work. But at Dufrain, we are always being challenged.
7. What skill do you think everyone should learn?
I come from a non-technical background and had to learn programming on the fly during a graduate scheme. I found myself in a steep learning curve without prior coding experience. Reflecting on that, I believe that the basics around SQL and Python are valuable skills. These languages are core to many technical roles, and having a fundamental understanding would benefit anyone, whether in school, university, or considering a career change. Learning SQL and Python are skills that I think everyone should explore.
8. Who inspires you most within Dufrain?
This is a really difficult question to answer because the easy answer is to say everyone inspires me but I’m going to go with that. I would say it’s Roberto DeGois who I’ve been fortunate to work with & know for pretty much the whole time I’ve been at Dufrain. Rob is a great Senior Consultant who delivers to a very high standard & clients love him however he inspires me because he always has a very positive/can-do attitude. Always smiling, always offering help or support and just a real embodiment of what a true Dufrainian is.
9. What does a typical day look like for you?
I try to start my day early, aiming for the gym around 6:00 to 6:30 AM, although having a 1 year old who is teething impacts whether I make it!
After returning, I begin my work by creating my To-Do List, something I still prefer to do with pen and paper. I take great satisfaction in ticking things off that list, whether I complete them that day or carry them over to the next.
What I love about consulting, especially in my role at Dufrain, is that no two days are the same. While I have standard stand-ups and client meetings, my client role now often involves firefighting and handling smaller mini-projects. The focus might be on figuring out solutions for something that’s not working and getting the right people together to move forward.
Within Dufrain, my schedule is filled with regular meetings, but again, no two days are identical. One day might involve an account management meeting, while the next could have calls with HR, planning internal communication or catching up with members of the consultant management team. While this can be stressful and overwhelming at times, not knowing what’s going to hit me that day is actually one of the most enjoyable parts of the job. I thrive on the unknown and the variety that consulting brings.
10. What is your favourite hobby?
I think anyone who knows me probably knows the answer to this, but I took up the game of golf when the pandemic hit, and it’s ruined my life ever since. It’s turned from a hobby into more of an addiction. I’ll play a round of golf in my head if I’m struggling to go to sleep, and I watch a lot of golf on TV and YouTube. I even bought a magazine a couple of months ago, I can’t remember the last time I bought a magazine!
For me, it’s not just a long boring walk, it’s the best way to clear my head. It’s been a game changer for my mental health, allowing me to switch off and make new friends.
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