By Angela Lindsay
Charlotte native Charlitta Crowder Hatch is a modern-day example of how women can effectively balance career, community and kids.
The business executive and mother to a newborn son is a technology consulting senior manager at Accenture, a leading global professional services company. She has managed more than $20 million in complex portfolio management, to assist organizations in providing better services to their customers. She has also mastered SAP, a software to manage business operations and customer relations that she uses to lead strategic design development, complex deployment rollout and production support.
Known as a passionate people developer within Accenture, Hatch is focused on recruiting and retaining women and minorities. As the chief operating officer for the North America Utilities Inclusion and Diversity program, she manages several programs for more than 5,000 employees, with the goal of making inclusion and diversity every individual’s personal priority. She pitched, developed and executed a program targeted at high-performing senior managers, to increase the focus on developing diverse leaders. This 12-course program, taught by various leaders who serve as sponsors for the participants, currently has 40 individuals developing skills including relationship-building, negotiation and sales to progress as managing directors. One key approach to her success: being able to recognize, embrace and rectify situations when they do not always go according to plan.
“Be willing to share your mistakes with your team and clients,” she advises. “It allows others to put their guard down and quickly builds trust and credibility.
In addition, Hatch serves as the recruitment lead for Accenture’s Charlotte African-American Employee Resource Group. In this role, she has developed plans to engage a team of 50 to participate in recruiting efforts to increase the diverse workforce in Charlotte. She has also worked to develop partnerships with nearby historically black colleges and universities, with a focus on graduate programs, to help increase overall hiring of experienced minorities.
“There are still many firsts for Black women to achieve in business. I am motivated to do my part with my seat at the table, use my voice responsibly and bring others along with me,” she says.
A Vance High School graduate, Hatch is committed to serving the community she loves. She serves as an advocate for women and children through mentorship and as a developer and leader across the Charlotte region with organizations such as Junior League of Charlotte, Junior Achievement and EmpowHERment. As a founding board member of EmpowHERment, Inc., a local nonprofit that empowers girls and women to be leaders in our community, Hatch has helped more than 1,200 Charlotte-Mecklenburg girls in the last five years. She has been instrumental in the Back-to-School Summit, a day-long program targeted at middle and high school girls, exposing them to what society says they cannot do and showing them not only that they can, but also introducing them to women around them who are currently doing it. As a board member and incoming chair, she has expanded the organization’s programs to include fund-raisers held twice a year, raising on average $25,000 each, and a monthly mentoring academy that pairs 20 local girls with 20 female mentors for four years to foster lifelong relationships, including an international service trip.
Following her graduation from Hampton University in Hampton, VA, Hatch returned to Charlotte and began mentoring high school students in various technology and engineering programs. She partnered with a teacher at her alma mater to launch the Vance High School Academy of Engineers for over 250 students and served as an advisory member. She has also worked with local elementary schools for the last three years to teach classes on citizenship and fundamentals of business through the Junior Achievement Our Community course.
In 2009, Hatch was diagnosed with Crohn’s, a chronic disease resulting in frequent hospital stays and invasive surgeries and treatments. However, Crohn’s “strengthened my motivation and faith and opened my eyes to the importance of being truly present in all that I do.” she says. It also ignited her passion to advocate for health issues that do not have a cure. Over the last three years, she has raised more than $70,000 for the Charlotte community through the organizations she supports, and was named to the 2016 Cystic Fibrosis STANDOUT Honoree class. Despite her numerous commitments and responsibilities, Hatch shows no sign of slowing down—proving that women can indeed do it all. It’s just all about moderation.
“They key to balancing the various demands women have on them at home, work and in the community is to be willing to accept that you will be out of balance in some areas during different times,” she says, “but it will all balance out in the end.”