10 years ago to the day, I embarked on what would become a new life adventure. Never would I have thought of the work style I would have encountered during this period – and fun of course!
I initially joined Amex on an IT Graduate Scheme on 1st September 2003, a scheme that was piloted in 2003 after a period of absence in the Amex Tech (AET) division, due to the dot com crash in 2000. The then CIO, Glen Salow, commented that after an absence of graduates in IT, it was important to bring in and develop new talent into the AET division, and the IT Graduate Scheme was developed with this sole purpose in mind.
Unlike the previous approach which resulted in 1-2 graduates being recruited as part of the wider company wide scheme – which continued, but focused on sales, operations, project management, marketing etc, the IT one focused on IT only (you could have guessed that from the title of the scheme) and with an increase intake of 30 graduates a year, with the intention to convert about 10% as full term employees at the end of the 2 year scheme. They event sponsored a Masters of Science as part of the programme.
I succeeded in completing the graduate scheme and got a distinction in the MSc degree as well…bonus! … and enjoyed the experience in the Project Management field.
After 18 months I managed to secure a permanent position in the GNS business (jumping from Tech to Business) on 1st December, and actually the timing resulted in me attending the Global employee conference in Miami. Wow that was a spot of luck and a great opportunity to meet and great all of my fellow colleagues in the division. I had some really enjoyable experiences, including working on some really high-profile, challenging but enjoyable projects, and did a few business trips as well. In March 2008, I was prompted to a Senior PM in the same team. I continued to do well in my role, including driving consultancy placements in Greece, Latvia and in 2011 in Saudi Arabia – the latter involved providing PM training to the Partner Bank organisation a that was an experience.
I then managed to secure a secondment (as part of a Global Rotation Programme) in the second half of 2011, and did well on this. So much so, I managed to secure an Internal transfer into the JAPA region, based on Singapore starting on 1st January 2013. I continue to do well in my role, helping to implement key initiatives, and take on a more operational role too (which is certainly different to my role in the UK).
And as they say the rest is history. 10 years on, I don’t know what the future will have for me. I have seen many interesting experiences (some good, some ‘different’), and I have managed to bypass several retrenchments over the past decade as well…phew!
Let’s see what happens in the next 10 years…where will I be, what will I be doing? Who knows!! One thing for sure, I will still be having fun and more importantly smiling strong 🙂
