What a Flanker: My journey from London to Perth with Pontem Analytics
I am writing this in the midst of Rugby World Cup fever having just returned from France after watching a young Australian side fall flat and exit in the group stages for the first time. Luckily, the good food, wine and hospitality made up for the disappointment of the on-field performance!
Coming from an Irish family, I have always been a big a rugby fan, which was a niche growing up in Western Australia, a state dominated by Aussie rules football. As I pack up all my worldly possessions for my journey back home to Perth from the home of rugby, Twickenham, part of me has to question, why!?
Whilst I have thoroughly enjoyed my time living in the UK, the cliche that “there is no place like home” really stands true for me (queue the song I Still Call Australia Home…). In the UK I love the social atmosphere, the cold Christmases and the general excitement of London big city life. However, I have never been able to escape the homesickness of warm beach days, BBQs with the family and the general Aussie lifestyle.
I have also always seen Western Australia as a place of great opportunity rivaled by few other places I have visited. The combination of a strong resources industry, close proximity to Asia and general hard-working spirit has provided many “£10 poms” the opportunity to thrive. This opportunity was a key aspect spurring me on to follow Pontem’s vision for the future.
So I guess to wind things back, how did I end up living in West London in the first place? Well, despite my thick Aussie accent (thicker when I am watching the Wallabies play), I was actually born West of London over three decades ago. My parents, who were both Northern Irish, were living and working in London at the time before making the bold decision to pack their lives up and move across the world to a strange new country, Australia, where they knew nothing other than Australia had opportunity. I was only 3 years old at the time and grew up considering myself Australian with the benefit of holding a British passport.
In my final years of high school I was a bit at a loss of what I wanted to do (professional rugby was out of the question due to the fact I was never very good). I finished high school with my top two subjects as economics and chemistry. I knew I didn’t want to be a chemist (sorry Pete and Stephen) and economics seemed too abstract. Then I heard about Chemical Engineering. Back then it was a relatively niche degree to do in Western Australia but it immediately piqued my interest and provided an opportunity to combine chemistry, problem solving and building “things”.
After I completed my Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Western Australia in 2012 I again reached a fork in the road with two job offers, flow assurance (I hardly knew what the term meant) and R&D Tax Consultant (I knew even less what this was). Having many friends and family in the energy industry, I accepted the role with Wood as a Flow Assurance Engineer with hopes it would provide me the opportunity to travel and experience as much as possible.
An accurate description of my job title for the first 6 years of my career would be Simulation Monkey, spending more time debugging simulations and fighting Excel than I care to remember. Although frustrating at times, this role gave me a strong understanding of the underlying principles, and limitations, of simulating real world physical phenomena. At the end of this period, I was left asking myself what more I could be offering. At this point I took a role as Field Development Consultant with Schlumberger. This role was definitely a step in the direction I was looking for. The opportunity to travel, apply my knowledge of offshore systems and provide real-world solutions.
After a year at Schlumberger, another opportunity came to me (when it rains it pours!) and I was contacted by Tommy and the AFS team to move to London to help support their growing UK business. At the time, I was the second person in our Richmond office and loved the thrill of being in a small company environment where there was nowhere to hide. This role gave me exposure to all aspects of running an engineering business. My role encompassed everything from BD to IT support but I thrived in the small fast paced environment.
After 4 years of fast paced work, we were forced to part ways and I took my final role before Pontem working as a Digital Transformation consultant. This broad term covered multiple aspects of technology including supporting the delivery digital strategies in the energy industry, providing AI / ML production optimization solutions, delivering digital twins and much more. I thoroughly enjoyed the work and the opportunity to acquire new skills, however I always missed the high paced atmosphere of a small consultancy.
So here I am, diving headfirst into my role at Pontem with all the nerves and excitement that have been missing for the past year. I have my plane ticket booked, my bags packed, and I am ready to get back home to my beloved rugby team, the Western Force, and get started on the Pontem adventure!