Dara Frere recently joined Deetken Insight as a Partner where she will apply her expertise to help lead and grow the team. We asked Dara about her background and what brought her to Deetken, as well as what she most enjoys about her work. Read on to learn more about what makes Dara tick.
1. Tell us about your background. What brought you to Deetken Insight?
Throughout my career, I have primarily worked within the IT and business field as an employee and as a consultant. During that time, I had the opportunity to participate in a number of different client engagements, many of which were focussed on supporting government, and were primarily in the social or healthcare sector. I discovered very early on that my knowledge and experience in IT and business were easily translated into my real passion of driving purposeful and positive change for my clients.
On a large engagement about eight years ago, I had the opportunity to work with André Powell and some others from the Deetken team. I found that André and I had a very similar work ethic and desire to peel back the proverbial onion to ensure we found the best path forward and outcome for our clients. All of my interactions with the Deetken team matched that solution-oriented approach and willingness to go the extra mile. André and I communicated on multiple occasions that one day we’d like to work together again, and our fates brought us together to work on a number of other projects. It wasn’t difficult to see that our alignment made sense, and here we are. I remain the same fan of Deetken that I always was, only now I am thrilled to be formally part of the team.
2. What do you most enjoy about your work?
I love not only helping my clients find a solution, but equally, and perhaps more so, identifying the problem. Our client groups most often know the outcome they want to achieve, but they don’t always know how to get there and what may be holding them back. Working closely with executives to unpack their strategy and vision and helping them translate that into an actionable plan and path forward is rewarding. Knowing that we have helped them move important initiatives forward not only matters to me on a professional level, but also on a personal one.
3. What do you do for fun?
Fun for me is spending time with my three children and my wife. We are a very busy and active family; at any given time my wife and I are driving one of the three to one of their various activities. Watching our kids push themselves and find their passions and joy is the best kind of fun. We love traveling, camping, outdoor activities, BBQ season, playing with our pup and enjoying a glass of wine when the kids are in bed. I come from a very large family, and finding ways to spend time with them is always full of laughter – we love any kind of board game or lawn game you can throw our way. Outside of spending time with family, I love being active, reading, traveling, golfing, dabbling in photography and cheering on the Canucks.
You can contact Dara directly at dfrere@deetken.com.
