Irina Owens
This month the spotlight shines on Irina Owens! This student intern turned full-timer has been supporting the business and data integration side of IT for over 11 years at Ohio State. Irina’s work on the so called “Fin-Fam” is rarely the same so she enjoys the new challenges that each project presents. Even though we would have loved to see Irina compete at the Olympics as a professional ice skater (her childhood dream job), we’re very glad she found her calling in OTDI. When she’s not at work, Irina and her husband have their hands full with a dog (who thinks he’s their child) and three-year-old son (who thinks he’s their boss).
Q: What is your role at the university? My official role name is Business Analyst Consultant.
Q: How long have you worked at Ohio State? I started working here on April 6, 2012 as a student intern as part of PeopleSoft Finance team and then full-time employee on July 2, 2012 which makes it 11.5 years.
Q: Have you worked on any large projects since you’ve been here? I have worked on several large projects including PeopleSoft Human Resources upgrade specifically data integration flows between PeopleSoft Finance. The biggest and most recent one was the Workday Finance implementation that started in 2016 with go-live in January 2021. Though, I missed the actual go-live on January 8, 2021 because I had my son on January 5, 2021.
Q: What are you currently working on? What does a typical day look like for you? Currently, I’m providing support to financial accounting areas within Workday which includes any enhancements to process that are requested or any troubleshooting of data errors. Additionally, I work with Adaptive system which receives and sends a lot of data between Workday and the system. Here I’m updating or building integrations or looking at a lot of data to understand why it’s wrong and how to fix it.
Q: What do you like best about your job? Each piece of work that I do is never 100% the same as prior work so there is never a dull moment. I also enjoy working with my coworkers and being part of the ‘Fin-Fam’.
Q: Did you always know this is what you wanted to do as a career? As I child, I wanted to be a professional Olympic figure skater and then a professional dancer. However, for ‘true’ profession, I thought I would be in an accounting type of a job until I realized their jobs are very repetitive month-to months which didn’t excite me.
Q. How did your career path bring you to work for us? As part of Fisher School of Business for their Management Information Science degree, in one of the classes, the teacher would bring industry professionals to discuss the work that happens at their companies. Dave Keiffer was doing a presentation about OSU which intrigued me. At the end of the class, I asked if there were any opportunities for recent graduates and he took my resume.
Q: What was your very first job? Unofficial job was babysitting, but first official job was at Express retail store at Easton Town Center.
Q: Where did you go to college? The Ohio State University, Fisher College of Business
Q: Where are you from originally? I was born in Moscow, Russia and came to Columbus, Ohio in 1999.
Q: What is your favorite place to visit? Maui, Hawaii or Spain. Both have such distinct atmosphere and unique culture.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? I would like to see most of the countries in Europe because the old towns have wonderful architecture and unique little streets.
Q: Can you tell us about your family? My dog thinks he’s a child who deserves treats at specific time of the day every day. My son thinks he’s the boss and tells me when I can look at my cellphone or work on my computer. My husband and I try to satisfy these bosses as best as we can.
Q. What do you do for fun outside of work? Do you have any hobbies? I used to have time to crochet or knit, workout, and keep a garden in the summer. Now I focus on parenting and keeping up with working out. It’s not really the season of life to have hobbies.
Q: It’s 9 p.m. on a Saturday. What are you doing? Attempting to convince my three-year-old that it’s bedtime. Before having him, I would exploring some place in Columbus like a restaurant or a brewery.