How Adriano became an IT leader

With a natural talent for fixing things and an ambitious streak, state manager at Interactive, Adriano Auciello is showing how to lead the way in IT.

“As a kid I was always tinkering; fixing things and finding out how things work. I grew up on an acreage riding and fixing motorbikes. I’m a car enthusiast too – so yeah, I’m a petrol head!

That desire to fix and troubleshoot made IT a natural career choice for me.

Victoria University's TAFE courses give students the hands-on advantage. Every class I did was applicable to my career. Subjects like Cisco networks, programming, Hardware A+ and Linux Redhat. While I studied, I also gained experience freelancing in PC repairs.

My lecturers were always encouraging me and had a lot of confidence in my abilities and potential.

I was fortunate to gain a graduate position with Interactive, a leading IT services company.

When you’re new to the workplace you don’t want to be a burden, but with the practical skills I’d gained during my studies, I was confident from day one. I was soon given a permanent customer engineer position before being promoted several times. Now that I’m in a position to hire graduates, I always look for that hands-on experience.

The advice I give others is to push yourself and put your hand up for new things. I would offer to do the admin that nobody wants to do – but is essential in management roles. I applied for extra courses and projects and managed the graduate program.

Now I’m the Victorian state manager. But I still jump in and help the teams whenever I can – that’s just something I’ll always do.”