{"id":51309,"date":"2019-03-27T19:09:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T19:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=51309"},"modified":"2024-05-16T17:07:09","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T07:07:09","slug":"acrobatics-accounting-and-advocacy-a-salesforce-career-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/au\/blog\/acrobatics-accounting-and-advocacy-a-salesforce-career-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Acrobatics, Accounting and Advocacy: A Salesforce Career Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tamara just celebrated her first year anniversary at Salesforce and is already well on her way to accomplishing her next wave of professional and personal ambitions as a young female leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find out for yourself\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamara on where she\u2019s from and her early years of life\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I have moved a total of 23 times; the most recent move being from Melbourne to Sydney in February this year. However, most of my upbringing took place in Queensland. A lot of my younger years were spent participating in state and regional level sport – specifically, swimming, waterpolo, sprinting and cross country. I was invited to be part of Brisbane\u2019s ballet company full-time, but instead found myself drawn to join Australia\u2019s leading youth circus, Flying Fruit Fly Circus. As the circus was based in Albury – and I was enrolled at a Catholic boarding school in Brisbane – it took some serious persuasion to get my parents on board with this teenage dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I determinedly researched local schools, living arrangements and part time work and presented it to my family who eventually agreed to let me go. To cut a long story short, after three years of juggling studying and performing, I injured my back on a teeterboard during rehearsal. Thankfully it wasn\u2019t a critical accident but enough of a shock to take heed of my step dad\u2019s advice that the circus wasn\u2019t a secure career and I would need a back-up plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On her career evolution\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I was accepted to both RMIT and Bond University in Business Management and Accounting, and selected Bond to be close to my family again. I studied part-time and worked four part-time jobs (at Boost Juice, Cue Clothing, a local golf course and as an assistant tax accountant) to pay-off my university debt. At the time I wanted to be an accountant, but by the end of my degree realised it wouldn\u2019t be the right career choice for me. Like many university graduates I felt lost. I had no idea what I wanted now that accounting was no longer my trajectory. Thankfully two different job opportunities arose; firstly a recruitment consultant role in Melbourne and secondly, a Graduate Change Manager at KPMG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My parents advised me, \u201cAt KPMG you will be a small fish in a very big pond, working long hours in a specialist field with zero prior experience.\u201d They encouraged recruitment, believing I would learn how to sell, negotiate, manage stakeholders, develop a \u2018thick skin\u2019, get first-hand knowledge of different organisational cultures and learn different business processes, which would all help me to identify what industry I might be most interested in. They were right. It absolutely did!<\/p>\n\n\n

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I set myself a goal of being an employee within 5 years – and I\u2019m proud and excited to say I made it here in two.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n