I used to follow cultural and societal expectations and then I had a moment of inspiration. Happiness is not following the herd but finding your own path.
I am a MBA, PMP and PRINCE2 qualified, highly motivated and experienced project manager with 10 years of experience of project management within challenging multinational global environments.
Beyond what my CV states, I am a self-starter and fast learner who thrives on producing positive outcomes and long-term success through clear management and communication. Throughout my professional career I am known for being a passionate and supportive team player amongst clients, colleagues and senior management and the go to person for advice, best practice and solutions.
My main area of expertise is building and leading project teams whose members are based in multiple countries and never meet in person but can succeed in delivering projects on time and on budget. I lead teams of designers, analysts, programmers, lawyers, specialists, testers etc who are based all over the world and are rarely, if ever, in the same place at the same time.
Conventional is not an adjective that I would use to describe myself or the last 10 years of my life. In my late 20s I had a job in a multinational and was in the process of following the English dream of becoming a homeowner.
I started the process to buy a house as I thought that was what I was meant to do. I was an adult and a contributing member of society and I believed that I had to have my own property. Most of my friends and family were homeowners, most TV shows were about home ownership and the newspapers were continually talking about mortgages and why owning a home is the best. In my mind it was logical that I thought that the path to happiness was to follow the herd and to become a home owner.
The more I thought about how owning a home would make me happy the less I thought that it would make me happy. I struggled with the cultural and societal expectations that I must buy a house. As a house, or more accurately a mortgage, seemed to me to be an anchor that would limit the options I had. Consequently, I asked myself, why did I need to buy a home now? The answer was that I did not have a real reason to buy apart from the reason that it was something everyone else had done and that I was expected to do so.
When I had this realisation, I took the opportunity to ask myself what it was that I wanted to do. I had always been interested in learning another language as I did not enjoy the English stereotype of not being able to communicate and understand other languages. As a result, I decided to quit my job and move to Valencia in Spain to teach myself Spanish.
My former colleagues thought I was brave and a little bit crazy to leave a well-paid job with a strong career path to go off and to be a language student. However, I felt the need to create my own path and to not follow the herd. I wanted to defy convention and the expectations that had been put upon me. Looking back, this was one of the best decisions of my life.
In Valencia, I spent 1 year studying at Spanish language schools. Then I took another crazy and unconventional decision to sign up for a MBA in Spanish. I wanted to challenge myself and I had always wanted to take my business education further. This was one of the toughest challenges of my life, as I had to learn everything twice. Once in English, so to understand the concepts we were being taught and then again in Spanish, so to understand what the professors were teaching and the articles and case studies they were sharing.
After 2 amazing years in Valencia I knew that I wanted to make Spain my home. During the worst economic crisis Spain and the world had seen for decades I leveraged my multinational project management experience and strong academic background to get a job in an American multinational based in Barcelona.
Now years later, I am in a position where I believe that I can share my extensive experience of delivering projects within challenging multinational global environments with the aim of benefiting other project managers.
I want to use my project management knowledge and my experience in working, studying and living in multinational and multi-cultural environments to create interesting articles.
I enjoy helping to improve processes, products, people and to ensure that clients (internal and external) achieve their aims.
Therefore, my articles will be about what I believe to be valuable and actionable lessons from my experiences, personal research, books, podcasts etc with the aim of helping fellow project management professionals of all levels of experience.
Successful International Project Management 