My professional story—from an ambulance, through business ownership and the UK Civil Service, to technology, business education and research.
My career has moved through emergency response, entrepreneurship, operational supervision and public service coordination. The industries changed, but the underlying work repeatedly involved people, risk, service delivery, judgement and turning plans into something that works in practice.
Responding to emergency calls gave me an early professional foundation in decision-making under pressure, teamwork, communication, responsibility and working within systems where reliability matters. I also gained experience around emergency care and operational coordination before moving to the UK.
I built and ran a taxi and pre-booked transport business in Kent. Beyond driving, the role meant managing customers, bookings, scheduling, finances, service standards and the everyday commercial decisions of a small business. It was my first long-term experience of having full responsibility for whether an operation worked.
Supervised Community Payback activity and developed practical experience in site supervision, risk assessment, health and safety, planning, communication and working with offenders in operational environments.
Continued frontline operational supervision, combining safe delivery, organisation of work, site requirements and responsibility for people completing Community Payback.
Progressed into senior supervision with wider responsibility for operational delivery, project planning, risk management, health and safety, communication and supporting consistent standards across Community Payback work.
My current role brings together placement development, operational planning, stakeholder communication, risk assessment and coordination. It has strengthened my interest in the organisational side of delivery: how resources, people, processes and external relationships have to align before a plan becomes workable.
Across very different jobs, I kept encountering similar questions: Why does a good plan sometimes fail in practice? Why do some teams adapt more easily than others? What makes a process useful rather than simply available? Those questions now connect my professional experience with my academic and research direction.
