Education: Electrical & Electronics Engineer
Job Overview: Design Electrical Network for Water and Waste Water Utilities
How I ended up at MWH: As part of our plan to permanently settle in Australia, I applied for a job vacancy with MWH.
What is on my desk right now: Project documents, a Chicago soup mug and my mobile.
Free time activities: Playing shuttle badminton, dance and watching movies.
Best career advice I’ve ever received: Go Toward Your Fear” Taking a big challenge may be scary, but they also represent the best opportunities for growth. Moving in the direction of your fear, rather than avoiding it, is an especially important message for women. “Women hold themselves to incredibly high standards. If they don’t feel 100% ready, they may be more cautious.” Don’t let fear paralyze you.
Another hilarious note from my ex-boss which always strikes me during career promotions is “you are promoted to the level of your incompetency”. In this context I would say that graduate engineers are an asset to any company. I started my Career as a graduate engineer with Mott MacDonald. I believe that graduate engineers are a strong work force for any company due to their adaptability to learn things and flexibility at work. I appreciate MWH for giving opportunities for graduate engineers.
Experiences at MWH: I am currently involved with electrical design on a client’s project, which recently completed the 90% design submissions. I can’t call it a challenging one as it is a replica of a similar project done before. However, the project I had worked with MWH for QUU on asset rehabilitation work last year had helped me to widen my knowledge on asset condition assessment of switchboards. My advice to correct a wrong operational procedure on a switchboard that did not have arc fault containment drew QUU’s attention on HSE risks. It also led QUU to further investigate the old version of AS standard that would have been applicable when the switchboard was manufactured.
Story to tell: I faced strongest challenges in my career when I worked as a Project Manager for a multi-million prestigious infrastructure project at Abu Dhabi. The project started as a Master plan for Phase 1 development which included the Abu Dhabi securities market, commercial offices, Cleveland Clinic, star hotels, serviced apartments and retail units. Due to the fast track nature of the works, it was soon decided to change it to a design and built Contract.
Started as a senior electrical designer in the project, I was promoted as a Project Manager to lead the infrastructure design team for the design of utility tunnels, electrical cable trenches, substations, pump stations and utility networks for the various developments in the Island.
The pressure on me as a PM to deliver the designs on time, getting authority approvals and at the same time answer site queries was really enormous and challenging.
I obtained several variations on the project having gained thorough knowledge of Contract and maintained a very good relation with the Client by the timely submission of deliverables and due to the promptness of responding to technical queries. Being responsible to sign on technical queries of all discipline designs, I had widened my technical knowledge of other disciplines, which helped me to answer queries from the developers during the meeting itself.
I always made it a point to celebrate with my colleagues on close out of any variation and compensated for extra-hours they work for to meet deadlines. My capability to deliver the work on time and on budget gave me the reputation as a strong manager as well as a compassionate colleague.
Leading a multi-cultural team on the project gave me the capability to adapt to any culture very quickly. I had known about the working culture and life style here in Australia from some of my Ozi colleagues, which may be one of the reasons I could adapt so easily to this new environment when we moved to Australia.
Without my family support, I would not have been able to take a challenging role as a PM with my daughter just two years old that time. I could afford all luxuries to take care of my daughter because of the good remuneration that my Company offered; I should say it was all because there was no gender inequality. Even knowing the weaknesses of a working mom, my Company had confidence to give me the challenging role as a PM, which I could handle well.
When woman can handle all the responsibility of her home while working a job, they can be definitely a better manager than a man as she holds those needed qualities like politeness, patience and good communication skills.
Pictured above is Julie with her family
