Based in Glasgow, I lead the UK Membership Development Team. I joined in 2000 and have built a deep knowledge and understanding of how professional qualifications and IMechE services can help members fulfil their personal and career potential. As a team, we recruit apprentice and student members and develop and maintain relationships with employers in industry and academia. We translate academic and competence requirements into individual pathways and support employers in attaining the high professional standards. To grow a diverse and sustainable membership, we support engineers throughout their careers, delivering workshops and 1:1 guidance sessions, customised to meet the requirements of the various audiences we engage with. As a team, we also provide strategic guidance for active volunteers in the regions.
I gain enormous job satisfaction from coaching applicants through the process of gaining registration and Fellowship. It’s fantastic to be in a role where we can help our members, across all grades, uncover the wealth of opportunities that may be realised by exploiting their IMechE membership. All our members contribute to IMechE’s influence globally, irrespective of their engineering sector or career stage. Receiving positive feedback from successful applicants always brings a smile.
Pivoting from delivering our events face to face to virtually was a challenge and rewarding to deliver successfully. I’ve also been delighted to receive excellent feedback from the Mentor Forum. I set up this virtual event in 2021 to support our mentoring community and it regularly attracts 50+ attendees from a wide variety of engineering sectors each month.