My name is Jordan Kolmus, I am the IT & Systems Lead at Accru Melbourne. I’ve been working for Accru for just over 4 years now. I am the resident IT expert, and I also work extensively with artificial intelligence and systems.
My journey to Accru began when I left school after Year 10 to pursue a career as a chef. I enrolled at TAFE and completed my qualification over three years, becoming a fully qualified chef. I then worked in the industry for around two years before realising it wasn’t the career I had expected.
After deciding to leave the industry, I began working as a waiter at a café. I quickly developed an interest in coffee, became a barista, and eventually progressed into the role of café manager. I worked in the café for 11 years, including throughout COVID, which was an especially challenging period for the hospitality industry. Following the birth of my first child, I began to rethink what I wanted from my career. I wanted more family-friendly working hours and greater opportunities for professional growth. To help make the transition, I completed a Business Administration course online. It helped that I had also always been interested in computers and technology.
When an opportunity at Accru became available, it appealed to me because of my interest in numbers, finance and technology. Within my first year, I had become confident with the firm’s systems and was already regularly helping colleagues with computer and technology issues. Over the following years, I gradually took on more responsibility for IT and systems and became a go-to person within the firm for technical issues and improvements. What started as an informal interest developed into a significant part of my role, and I continued to build my knowledge and experience as new responsibilities came my way.
After four years with the firm, I was promoted to IT & Systems Lead, with responsibility across IT, business systems, automation and artificial intelligence. I’m known for being a practical problem-solver and for finding ways to use technology to make people’s day-to-day work easier. My areas of expertise are IT, business systems, automation and increasingly AI, with a particular focus on improving how our people work and reducing unnecessary manual processes.
Today, I primarily work with our people across the firm, supporting teams at all levels and across different service areas. I enjoy working with people to understand their technology or process challenges and finding practical ways to improve how they work. This can range from day-to-day IT support through to improving business systems, developing internal apps, automating manual processes and exploring how AI can be used effectively across the firm.
What makes Accru special to me is the opportunities it has given me and the doors it has opened. Since then, I’ve been given the opportunity to learn, take on new responsibilities and ultimately build a career in an area I genuinely enjoy. For me, Accru has provided not just a job, but a career path that I wouldn’t have imagined when I first joined.
Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family, cooking and working on DIY projects around the house. I’m a qualified chef, so although I no longer cook professionally, I still love cooking at home. I’m also a keen DIYer and have built up a fairly impressive collection of power tools over the years.