How breaking my leg led to my IT career by Benedetto Conversano

Our Chief Digital & Information Technology Officer, Benedetto Conversano, shares his journey into a career in technology, and challenges you to turn difficulties into opporunities

When people ask me how I got into IT, they are often surprised by my answer: my passion for technology started when I broke my leg, aged 11. My dad, who worked in electronics, realised I needed something to keep me occupied, and still, for eight weeks while my leg healed. He came home with a second-hand PC, and inadvertently started my IT career. Breaking my leg wasn’t a pleasant thing to go through, but I am so thankful, as it gave me two months to learn, and fall in love with programming.

I began making my own video games on that old PC, which was just the start of a healthy obsession with technology. I continued programming right up to my first job at P&G, partly because I loved it, and partly to fund my scuba diving hobby.

Developing and selling programmes to small businesses not only earned me money but helped give entrepreneurs the tools they needed to succeed in their businesses.

Now, I’m proud to be Avon’s new Chief Digital & Information Technology Officer, and my passion for helping hardworking beauty entrepreneurs can continue, on a much larger scale. I think that technology democratises business, just as Avon democratises beauty. All you need to set up your own business with Avon is a smart phone, and the determination to learn and work hard.

I think we make our own luck in life, and by cultivating the right mindset, attitude, personal accountability and belief, we can turn a negative into a positive. When my leg was broken, I could have moped about and felt sorry for myself, sad that I was missing out on fun with my friends. But instead, thanks to my father’s influence, I did something positive with that time, learning the skills that built the foundation of my career.

I believe that each of us is the result of our own decisions. So that is my challenge to you: will you overcome any difficulties you are facing, and succeed despite them? We have the power to create possibilities and write our own future, and my wish is that yours is a success.