Darin Hilliker, Managing Director
If you were in a bar and asked folks to name the greatest football coaches of all time you would hear a string of names like Paul "Bear" Bryant, Knute Rockne, and Bobby Bowden. A name you might not hear is Frosty Westering. As a valued recruit out of high school, Darin had certainly never heard of Coach Westering. But in one of those life-twists, he got introduced to the coach's program at Pacific Lutheran University. Darin was 17, resilient and fast like a Safety should be - and was looking at scholarships at the Air Force Academy and Princeton. When he met coach, he didn't get the typical tough talk about striving for victory - being #1. No, Darin stood on the sidelines of a few games before making his decision and watched and listened to Coach Westering as he asked a simple question in a million different ways: What kind of man do you want to be? Even at the age of 17 Darin somehow knew that becoming the man you wanted to be was a bigger - and more challenging goal - than just becoming the football player you might want to be.
Darin declined the Ivy League education and the chance to play in the fast-paced WAC conference that would have highlighted his athletic talent. Instead, he put on the Lutes black and yellow, walked on to the PLU field and began his journey to learn about - and become - the man he wanted to be.
It turns out that if you help young men to this greater challenge, you also tend to win a ton of football games. A little known sports fact is that Coach Westering is number nine on the all-time wins list for college football coaches. It also turns out that when you are led by a great mentor - one who understands that even short-term objectives can be achieved more easily when you understand the larger forces at work and that the journey is as valuable as the result - that you become a fine leader yourself.
And so it has been with Darin's career. He spent 17 years at Accenture, rising to Partner at the Seattle office where he handled both the account development and delivery management of nearly $35 million in business prior to his departure. In those 17 years, Darin successfully built and led teams to deliver focused strategy, planning, and business process centric efforts to complex IT and business transformation programs spanning all functional domains of an organization. His particular focus was telecom, including T-Mobile, Clearwire, Telus (Canada), and Qwest, as well as high tech companies like Microsoft.
Of course Darin's journey continues, and we're proud to be part of that with Darin as the ACME Seattle practice Managing Director. Darin spends his free time with his wife and two young daughters.
