Can you tell us about your career journey and what led you to join The ai Corporation?  

I started working in Operations for a bank in the City after graduating and quickly moved into a project role as I realised that’s where my strengths were. I enjoyed the fast pace and working with a great team from various departments to hit deadlines and upgrade systems. It was a period of rapid technological change- I worked on the Y2K project to prevent our trading system from crashing when the year changed at the end of 1999. My career evolved into a more management-focused role over the next few years, first as a team leader and then as a manager overseeing three smaller teams. After having my son, I returned to work part-time and moved back into a job share project role. Projects included upgrading the bank’s invoicing system for asset management clients and helping with an operations outsourcing project to establish an offshore operations team.  

Once my daughter was born, I took a career break to look after my children. In 2020, I was ready to return to the workplace but was nervous about all the changes I knew had taken place since I had last worked in an office. I researched to get myself up to speed as best I could, took opportunities to attend seminars on returning to work, and asked a recruiter friend for some mock interview experience. I heard about the opportunity at The ai Corporation through a friend of a friend. I knew I wanted to return to operations and ideally use my project management experience in a finance-based business. The initial role I took on was a part-time Executive Assistant role, in early 2020, with a hope and expectation that the role would develop into a full-time position with some projects responsibility in the medium term. COVID then came along, and so the EA part of the role quickly dropped away. By the end of 2021, I was working full-time in the Projects Team. 

You’ve recently been promoted to Head of Projects. How have your responsibilities changed, compared to your time as Programme Manager for aiEazyFuel^®? 

My promotion means I am now part of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT). This group meets twice a week and is responsible for implementing the company strategy across all teams. We focus on resolving and mitigating project escalations, ensuring the company’s strategic goals are prioritised, reinforcing the company culture, including our key values of motivation, accountability, innovation, and teamwork, and supporting our line managers and all team members. One of the main changes is that I feel more empowered to advocate for my wider team, ensuring that timelines are realistic and that the risks and challenges around project delivery schedules are visible, especially when there are fast-paced changes to scope and expectations. 

You work across multiple teams and products. How do you bring people together and keep projects on track?  

One simple thing is ensuring my camera is on during Teams calls and encouraging others to do the same. I find it really helpful to see colleagues' and customers’ faces; it improves understanding and communication in general. I find it means people engage more with the subject under discussion, which is invaluable and can be a challenge when people are so busy and trying to multitask at times. Similarly, having meetings in person is really helpful, it enables the time spent to be more effective and definitely encourages collaboration and people to be more vocal. It also contributes to buy-in from all involved, ensuring deadlines are realistic and that people can commit to the action items assigned to them. The more realistic the deadlines are from the outset, the easier it is to keep projects on track. 

Project management methodologies and tools are always evolving. How do you keep your skills and knowledge sharp? 

We have built AI right into the foundation of our project workflows.  From starting out just using AI in simple ways, such as creating meeting minutes and action logs, we now have several bespoke AI agents used across the business to help with Incident Management, creating technical training for both team members and customers, and data analysis for project costing, for example. All of this enables us to focus our time and energy on adding more value, gaining more insight and improving the quality of our deliverables. 

What has been the most rewarding aspect of stepping into your new role? 

It’s definitely a confidence boost to be recognised for hard work and to be given more responsibility. I’d like to feel I’m already starting to make a difference to my team by engaging them more closely with the company’s management and helping to get decisions made more quickly. 

What’s your proudest moment at ai so far, and what made it stand out? 

We completed a really large project last year, and we had a companywide party to celebrate in a local restaurant, including awards and a quiz to see who knew the most about the project! 

How would you describe ai in 3 words? 

Collaborative, fast-paced and rewarding.  

What advice would you give to someone looking to grow into a project leadership role? 

Try to find time to prepare for every call, even just a few minutes to cover the pre-read, or checking the latest status of the sprint, can not only make the call more informative for all but also gives you confidence to get the most out of the meeting as you have the latest facts or ideas to share. 

What do you enjoy most about working for ai? 

I would have to say the people- my colleagues are a bright, enthusiastic and fun bunch of people to work with. We also have our fair share of fun outside of the office, be it regular organised socials or our weekly running club along the canal, weather permitting, of course!