Meet Akilah Baddoo, Senior Project Manager, the latest member of our Spotlight series. Her gift for organizing people and building trust began long before she had a project management title.
“I feel like I’ve been a project manager all my life.”
Akilah Baddoo
Senior Project Manager
A Foundation in Family and Planning
Akilah grew up between New York and Trinidad, the middle child and oldest girl in a family of six children. In Trinidad, she watched her paternal grandfather, Lauree McHardy, run his contracting business and build homes. Sitting beside his blueprints, she saw how planning, leadership, and the right sequence of decisions could turn an idea into something real.
“I watched my grandfather direct, direct, direct,” she remembered. “He had all these blueprints in front of him, and I would just sit there and watch him.”
Her mother encouraged an equally full life: piano, dance, ballet, and sports. With so many activities and people to coordinate, Akilah became comfortable taking the lead.
The Project Manager Before the Title
Her career began as a clerk at a freight company, where colleagues noticed her ability to coordinate clients and work with people. Account management at Verizon followed, then a 21-year career at ADP.
At ADP, she moved from benefits into time and attendance implementation consulting. When she began suggesting a better sequence for implementation work, the project manager overseeing her asked whether she wanted to do his job. She stepped into the role, developed new processes, and became one of the organization’s first project managers to support implementations remotely.
Years later, one of her sons asked whether she was still learning or simply working on autopilot. The question helped her recognize that she wanted a new challenge. At HRchitect, she found the opportunity to think differently, adapt to each client, and keep growing.
“When I came here, I saw an opportunity for me to be more of myself.”
Akilah Baddoo
Senior Project Manager
Akilah values the way HRchitect recognizes strengths beyond a résumé. Her move into client-side project management brought her relationship-building skills to the forefront. She also credits teammates such as Crystal Judd with having her back and responding quickly when a difficult situation needs support.
Turning Client Trust Into Teamwork
At HRchitect, Akilah’s client-side project management work puts her alongside the client’s team. One client, Gildan, asked her to continue supporting them after implementation for a simple reason: “I trust you.”
She saw a similar connection develop at Jack Link’s. As the relationship grew, the client became more receptive to her recommendations about which HRchitect consultants and specialists could help. The trust she earned opened the door to confidence in the broader team.
That support is especially valuable in manufacturing environments, where workforce projects can involve shift rules, payroll, integrations, and multiple stakeholder groups. HRchitect’s client-side subject matter experts help teams navigate decisions and deliverables when bandwidth or specialized expertise is limited.
HRchitect’s UKG consulting services support UKG Pro, UKG Pro Workforce Management, UKG Ready, and TeleStaff, from system implementation and change management through post-go-live support. For Akilah, knowing when to bring in the right specialist is part of taking ownership of the client’s success.
The Voice She Still Carries
Akilah’s mother, Dr. Joycelyn Stewart-McHardy, remains a powerful influence. Born in Tunapuna, Trinidad, she spent nearly 40 years at Kings County Hospital and brought her creativity to theater, writing, and directing. She also learned sign language to work with people with hearing impairments.
Akilah grew up alongside her siblings Alfonso, Andre, Vaughn, Aniqua, and Zenzie. Her mother’s example of caring for others continues to shape how she supports her family and clients.
When her mother became ill, she encouraged Akilah to keep going and hold on to the plans she had made for her children. Those lessons stayed with her long after she organized her mother’s celebration of life.
“Thank you for sharing so much of your life with me and giving me so many nuggets that I still carry,” Akilah said, reflecting on her mother.
Family Is Her Center
Akilah and her husband, John Baddoo, met in high school and raised five sons: Charles, John, Akil, Amir, and Asan. Between work, school, sports, and travel, family life has given her plenty of practice balancing schedules and making room for what matters.
When Akil’s baseball schedule grew more demanding, flexibility at work helped her manage her accounts while supporting his training and opportunities. He was selected by the Minnesota Twins in the second round of the 2016 MLB draft and made his Detroit Tigers debut on April 4, 2021, hitting a home run on the first pitch he saw.
Today, her family story includes the joy of grandchildren, too. “My family is my world,” she said.
Away from work, Akilah enjoys traveling with family and friends and joining John for the mountain adventures he loves. Her photos include a Turks vacation with family and friends and a Belize view she describes as her retirement home.
- What do you do at HRchitect?
- I’m a Senior Project Manager at HRchitect, and while planning, organization, and keeping projects on track are a big part of what I do, I think the client-side work is where I really get to use all of my strengths.
- I’m responsible for making sure the right people are involved, priorities are clear, timelines stay on track, and nothing falls through the cracks, but the role is really about much more than managing a project plan.
- I spend a lot of time building relationships with clients, understanding what they’re trying to accomplish, translating that into clear actions for the project team, and connecting all of the moving pieces along the way.
- I also see myself as an advocate for the client—making sure they feel heard, understand their options, and always know where we are, what’s next, and what needs to happen to keep things moving forward.
- A lot of what I bring to the role is the ability to take something that can feel complicated or overwhelming and make it more manageable and clear.
- So, while there’s definitely a lot of planning and organization involved, there’s also a lot of communication, problem-solving, relationship-building, and leadership, and I really enjoy being the person who brings all of those pieces together and helps the client feel confident that their project is in good hands.
- What does being a trusted advisor mean to you?
- It means the client knows I have their best interest in mind. Even if I need to bring in someone else with a particular expertise, they trust me when I say, “This is the person you need.” At the same time, the organization I work for trusts me to take on the project because they know I’ll take ownership, bring in the right people when needed, and see it through to completion.
- What is the hardest part of being a planner?
- Relinquishing control. I am learning that things can still work out even if they are not done exactly the way I would have done them. My faith has played a huge role in helping me trust that.
- What are you most proud of?
- My family, absolutely. Watching my children become adults and seeing where their lives have taken them means everything to me.
- For Akilah, planning is most meaningful when it helps people feel supported. Whether she is guiding a client through an implementation or making memories with her family, she brings the same commitment to seeing things through.
- Keep the conversation going. Connect with Akilah on LinkedIn, or talk with HRchitect about project management and client-side support.