About Me


My name is Caroline Roche -- I'm a Partner at IBM Services and a graduate of William and Mary & the Madeira School. More importantly, I am a wife and mom (with a 4 year old daughter, 2.5 year old son, and 1 year old son).

This blog will focus on my thoughts as a working mother career and life balance, leadership,  -- and particularly developing women in the workplace. I also love to cook and travel - so I'm sure those topics will find their way here as well.

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

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On schedules, post-COVID work, & travel with a 6, 4, and 2 year old

I haven't written in a while. Or, I should say, I've drafted 10 blogs, but haven't posted them because I never quite finished them. Early in working parenthood, so much of my experience felt intense and very new. I was going through big new phases all the time and trying to learn how to do them; so it felt very natural to share those experiences here.  I've moved into more of a hum-drum phase of we have our routine and schedule and we mostly juggle it well; but my days are packed, and I try not to add extra things into them, which includes writing less!  The past couple of months, I have been traveling quite a bit for work and have spoken with a couple of new moms or soon-to-be moms on my team about my schedule and juggling being a working mom- which inspired me to return to this forum to comment on how my schedule has evolved as my kids have aged and how I've been handling the increasing demands from a travel perspective. I always have an almost voyeristic interest
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My 3 (okay, a little more than three!!!) Pieces of Advice for New Consultants

We are in the thick of onboarding season for our new college hires and almost to the end of our interns; likewise, I have a couple of family members who are early in their career or in the middle of their internships and so I’ve been thinking a lot about things that I wish I had known - or lessons I learned along the way.   When I first started at IBM, one of the first tasks that was assigned to me was to plan a go-live party for the project I was on. I planned the party, thinking it was an extravagant event… but did not plan a bar or any cocktails (we were WORKING after all!!!); my boss at the time was quick to fix that mistake before the event review with our project partner (it WAS a CELEBRATION after all!!!!). Then, the partner completely overhauled my menu that I’d spent hours perfecting (as it turns out passed appetizers are better than stations… etc.).   Another big task of mine at the time was to create the slides for the weekly project status meeting. I had two major issues in
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