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Alumni Leader Spotlight: Beatriz Nava, Accenture

Alumni leader spotlight banner Beatriz Nava

Beatriz Nava’s journey at Accenture started long before she took over the alumni network a year ago. Now she’s responsible for overseeing the world’s largest corporate alumni program, aiming to enhance its value through innovation. Read more about her in the interview below.

Topics: Alumni Engagement, Alumni Network, Spotlight Interviews

Beatriz Nava is the Global Alumni Relations Lead at Accenture, a Fortune 500 company with more than 700,000 employees and 300,000 active alumni. She’s based in Madrid, Spain working in the global Human Resources department and has been the Accenture Alumni Network Program Lead since July 2022.

Her tenure at Accenture spans more than 15 years in Global Human Resources Strategy (alumni experience & career transitions, talent development, coaching, learning and inclusion & diversity), Corporate Citizenship (designing innovative training experiences), and management consulting. She has extensive experience in project management, change management, and finance, as well as skills in agile methodologies (ScrumMaster), LeanStartup and Design Thinking.

Bea took the lead in managing Accenture’s Alumni program one year ago and has really hit the ground running. She’s coordinating one of the oldest and largest corporate alumni programs in the world with a goal to drive even more value by offering new learning resources for career development, creating new ways to connect to increase business development and networking opportunities, enhancing the rehiring process and expanding resources and possibilities to alumni. She relies on an innovative and customizable technology platform to support all these goals.

PeoplePath: Tell us about yourself and your professional background. 

Bea: I live in Madrid with my family and have been working at Accenture for 15 years. I started in management consulting and then spent several years doing projects for corporate citizenship in Spain. I started working in Global Human Resources one year ago, as the Global Alumni Relations Lead managing the Accenture alumni program strategy and operations at a global level supporting more than 100 countries.

PeoplePath: What was your favorite working experience before now? 

Bea: I loved my experience in Corporate Citizenship, working on the Accenture Foundation and the Skills to Success initiatives, which focused on finding new ways to create and build more inclusive career pathways, so everyone has access to sustainable careers. My last project in this space was focused on inclusion and diversity, to help provide more opportunities for people with disabilities in the company. I worked directly with HR teams and learned more about HR processes.

PeoplePath: How did you get started working in corporate alumni networks?

Bea: My previous career path at Accenture in Corporate Citizenship brought me here. It perfectly connected my interest in people, their personal and career development, and my understanding of program strategy and management. I trained as an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Coach and then moved to Global Human Resources for this role.

Corporate alumni networks are fascinating because HR strategy, business strategy, networking, personal and career development coexist together. It Is a privilege to work for one of the oldest and largest corporate alumni networks in the world with more than 319,000 registered alumni spanning more than 100 countries.

PeoplePath: What does a typical day look like for you? What do you most look forward to?

Bea: I start working early in the morning. I work on a global team with my teammates located in North America, Argentina, India, etc. I’m the only person on the Alumni program team in Spain so I can work from home. Managing a global, cross-functional team, I need to coordinate across agendas and time zones, which is a big challenge, as you can imagine!

In the mornings, I have time to read emails and organize myself for the afternoon meetings when my team will be online. After my afternoon meetings, I transition to my other most important role: Mom. I have a big family, and I love the flexibility this role brings me.

I look forward to continuing growing as a person and as a professional. This role allows me to keep learning!

PeoplePath: What do you see as the greatest benefit to an active and vibrant corporate alumni community?

Bea: The alumni program has several benefits for the business. While we provide many benefits to our past employees for continued career-development purposes, we also build long-term connections, which leads to strong brand advocacy. Our alumni also are a future source of talent – they are lifelong brand ambassadors. You can extend your company values and your impact even when your employees are no longer with the company, which I think is truly amazing and mutually beneficial.

PeoplePath: What advice do you have for other alumni program managers?

Bea: Define a mission and clear strategic priorities that serve the business and the alumni. Once this is done, everything should be anchored to those pillars. For me, a corporate alumni program provides a world of opportunity with endless possibilities. Whenever a new idea arises, just go back to your program’s pillars and keep an eye on how you are going to measure the impact.