Patrycja Sobera: Women in Digital Award Ceremony 2023

A Top 25 thought leader, a CX influencer, a Lean In Ambassador, a DEI champion, a mentor and a mother. Patrycja Sobera is the global vice president of delivery for Digital Workplace Solutions (DWS), overseeing 9,000 associates in frontline support services, service desk, endpoint operations, knowledge function services and end-user experience management. Patrycja brings extensive experience in global technology service delivery, demonstrating a proven ability to drive continual service improvement and optimization while consistently exceeding industry benchmarks. Patrycja joined Unisys in 2021, and in her two years with the company, she has led the DWS delivery team to implement AI-enabled services, available 24x7x365 in any language, doubling automation services for IT teams, allowing them to focus on more high-value tasks. That work has resulted in an 83% increase in the number of automated resolutions for clients over the course of just 24 months. These results, coupled with high customer satisfaction marks and tangible ROI have garnered Patrycja and her team 23 finalist rankings and seven global awards for end-user experience delivery in the industry. Further, HDI, the leading events and services organization for technical support and service management, named Patrycja as one of its Top 25 Thought Leaders of 2022 and a featured contributor in 2023. She was also selected to serve as a judge for the Service Desk Institute’s Best Service Desk CX 2023 award.

Patrycja has been instrumental in evolving the company’s approach to service and delivery for DWS, transitioning the company’s go-to-market offerings from simply Service Level Agreements with key performance indicators to eXperience Level Agreements (XLAs). This elevated lens allows the company to capture end-user sentiment and other data points to more accurately address and eliminate interruptions before they occur. Today, the team has 14 XLAs in the production environment—a tremendous accomplishment that contributes directly to client and employee satisfaction and productivity. This proactive approach, along with the increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and analytics, have underpinned Patrycja’s End-User Experience (EUX) strategy. And it’s clearly paying off. With new client growth and an overall increase in modern workplace services, her business unit’s revenue grew 15% year-over-year in 2022. Beyond business, Patrycja’s leadership style has decreased attrition and improved talent retention. Her passion for associate engagement allows her team to proactively bring forth new ideas for their customers, ultimately creating a workforce with a growth mindset. Under her watch, diversity among the mid- and senior-management levels has improved, and the team often describes her as empowering, passionate, disciplined and innovative.

Patrycja reimagines our solution offerings for our clients, focusing on delivering world-class end-user experience, transforming from reactive to proactive to predictive solutions. Investing in associate skills development, she created an associate development program around Modern Device Management and piloted a EUX Experience Ambassador program to ensure the associate and client experiences never stop evolving. Her team won the 2023 HDI Awards for "Best Service and Support Culture" and "Best Service and Support Organization" and were finalists for six other awards. The “Best Service and Support Culture” award recognizes promoting a creative and collaborative work environment where people are supported and empowered to improve. The “Best Customer Experience” award honors empowering our people, processes and technology to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty. When Patrycja rises, she takes five people with her. Patrycja is the lead for Unisys’ EMEA Women in Tech, and lovingly calls it her “2 a.m. passion project.” She hosts Lean In sessions quarterly for up to 300 attendees to provide them with tangible tools for career growth while enabling dynamic networking. Passionate about knowledge sharing, her team completed a collection of 100 End User focused articles to enable automation, shift left and standardization efforts. And she’s authored Look Within to Manage Experience, How are XLAs Similar to Love? and How humans actually work. She’s featured in We are Tech Women.

Patrycja is a leader in every sense of the word. She grew up in Poland, “behind the iron curtain,” and was five years old when martial law was imposed in December 1981. At age 13, she only spoke Russian and dreamed of traveling and learning Western languages. Fast forward, and Patrycja earned her Master’s degree in teaching and foreign language, which she used in her first job as a French teacher. In 2000, she took her love of language and patterns in a new direction and started working in tech. Today, she speaks Polish, English and French and continues to teach those around her how to reimagine the complex into elegant solutions powered by advanced technologies. Her dedication to her employees and company success is evident in her ability to manage teams across multiple geographic locations while maintaining consistent communication and goal attainment. Her insistence on skip-level meetings allows for a greater degree of professional development for all that work for her. Patrycja is a passionate champion of diversity, equity and inclusion; she has served as a Lean In ambassador for ten years and is an active member of the Professional Women’s Network at Unisys, where she recently hosted the company’s global International Women’s Day celebration. Patrycja shared her passion for inclusion in a recent People Matters Global article, DEI: Overcoming unconscious gender bias in the workplace.

Patrycja has quickly made a name for herself. Joining the technology company in April 2021 from Marsh McLennan, she started at Unisys as the Vice President of End-User Experience. Her swift ascent to global vice president of delivery for DWS in just shy of two years has tripled her scope, providing a broader canvas for Patrycja’s ideas and influence. The role expansion is a testament to the successes she unlocked rapidly for her team and her reputation for challenging the status quo of traditional support models. While her accomplishments as part of the big picture are impressive, her individualized attention often is what sets her apart. “She has boosted my innovative spirit by listening to my ideas and providing direction and support—always providing another perspective playing devil’s advocate to helping articulate the proper message and successful outcomes for our company,” said the Director of Knowledge Function Services on her team. Her Experience Manager said, “Patrycja is the leader I truly wish every employee had. I came to Unisys because of the vision Patrycja put forth about the experience and impacting lives (employees and customers alike). That resonated with me, and I thought I could truly have a meaningful impact. I stay at Unisys because Patrycja's vision isn’t just talking but something she strives to see become a reality for every team and customer.” Based in the UK, when Patrycja isn’t creating breakthroughs for clients, she is mum to two girls.