This is what I've been working on

If you had asked me a few years ago what my work would look like today, I'm not sure I would have pictured myself standing beside large commercial battery systems, coordinating engineers, contractors, manufacturers, executives and operational teams across complex projects.

But looking at this photograph, it actually feels like a pretty accurate representation of where my career has taken me.

And while energy is a major part of what I do, I've realised that the technology itself isn't really what defines my work.

What I enjoy most is finding an opportunity that isn't immediately obvious, building the evidence for it, creating a compelling vision around what it could become, and then bringing together the people needed to make it real.

Costs might be increasing. Infrastructure may need upgrading. An organisation may have ambitious sustainability goals but no clear pathway to achieving them. Or there may simply be an opportunity that nobody has properly investigated yet.

That's where I like to start.

I enjoy getting underneath a problem through research, data analysis, feasibility studies and business cases.

What is happening today?

Why is it happening?

What are the alternatives?

What would they cost?

What value could they create?

And what could this become if we thought bigger?

Once the evidence supports an idea, my role often moves from analysis into leadership and delivery.

That can mean establishing the vision, building the team, coordinating engineers and contractors, working with executives and operational teams, managing commercial decisions and keeping a complicated project moving towards its original objective.

My current work spans solar, battery storage, electrical infrastructure, energy resilience, monitoring, data, automation and increasingly AI.

Some projects are individual sites. Others involve much larger multi-site programs and significant infrastructure.

One thing I've learned is that a great project can create value far beyond its original purpose.

An energy project might reduce costs, but it could also improve resilience, provide better operational information, strengthen an organisation's sustainability credentials, improve its customer experience or create a new point of difference.

That's why I also enjoy working alongside operational and communications teams to help organisations tell the story of what they've built and why it matters.

For me, successful project delivery isn't simply about reaching commissioning.

It's about leaving the organisation better than we found it.

What I love to do

I've never found a single job title that describes it particularly well.

Perhaps this does:

I identify opportunities, build the evidence and business case, create the vision, bring the right people together and help turn the idea into something real.

I don't need to be the smartest engineer in the room.

I need to understand the objective, ask the right questions, recognise when specialist expertise is required and make sure talented people are solving the same problem.

That's the work I'm doing today.

And it's the work I want to do much more of.