Jordan Rambo has been with Accenture for more than two decades.

During his long tenure with the organization that started in June 2000, he has had several different experiences and filled several different roles. 

In March 2021, he was promoted to his current position as the Office Managing Director for Accenture’s Philadelphia Metro Region.

During an interview with AL DÍA, Rambo boiled down his role into three different, and equally important, responsibilities. 

“First and foremost, it’s about our people,” said Rambo. “To make sure we’re creating environments for our people to feel engaged, seen, safe, connected [and] courageous.”

In his role, Rambo is responsible for creating opportunities for people to connect with one another and fortifying the environment to do so effectively. 

Another responsibility is about community engagement. 

“We’ve got a number of organizations that we work with from a philanthropic standpoint across a variety of different purposes and missions,” said Rambo.

He added that they range from food inequity to sustainability to workforce development, and beyond. 

Some of the community work involves the launch of its Apprenticeship Network, engagement with the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, its work with the Recharge and Recovery Philadelphia, and many other corporate citizenship initiatives with organizations like Graduate Philadelphia, Junior Achievement, Back on My Feet and Compass. 

The third responsibility is engaging with its various clients, which includes Comcast and PECO. 

Through those collaborations, Accenture is able to work hand-in-hand with other employers on like-minded endeavors and initiatives.

“The intersection of those three elements — our people, our community and our clients — is my responsibility to stitch those things together in the Philadelphia area.”

He added his vision is “making sure that people feel connected, that people have an opportunity to be their full selves, creating spaces where we cultivate creativity and innovation, and also having an eye toward how we not only give back in the community, but celebrate shared successes around giving back to the community.”

A More Holistic View on Talent

In 2016, Accenture launched a new apprenticeship program to create opportunities for underserved and underrepresented communities to gain access to jobs.

Beyond that, it also helped create a new pathway for employment. 

“We made a commitment, Accenture, as an organization to remove some of the barriers around how we looked at talent and attracted talent to the organization,” said Rambo. 

He noted that one of ways Accenture has done so is by removing the four-year degree requirement for entry-level positions. 

“That was one of the first steps that we took. But as we thought about how we would go about looking at other pipelines for talent, the apprenticeship network became very vital for us as an organization,” Rambo added. 

The pandemic has amplified many of the challenges that have existed in the workforce, particularly as it pertains to disparities in certain communities. 

Accenture’s approach, Rambo said, has been to create resiliency within that workforce, upskill talent and create new pathways toward employment opportunities. 

The apprenticeship program has grown over the years, in large part due to Accenture’s engagement with organizations that has helped identify the city’s talent pipeline. 

“There are a number of organizations that we saw as an untapped pool of talents that would fit very nicely into our aspirations around creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce that enabled a nontraditional pipeline of talent to come into the mix,” Rambo said.

As the apprenticeship program continued to show its worth, Accenture made a commitment to fill 20% of its entry-level roles with its apprentices. 

“We see it as a tremendous opportunity for us to give back to the community,” said Rambo.