I joined RM in 1999 as a Network Support engineer where I worked with a relatively new team of engineers (which had been up and running for less than a year) supporting a variety of customers in the Education sector.  24 years on and I’ve held a variety of roles including Support Consultant, Team Leader, Group Manager, Head of Customer Experience and Improvement and most recently Head of Service Operations. 

I have always had a passion for education and, at one point, had planned to be a teacher before deciding on what turned out to be a different path (albeit still close to education). 

Before joining RM I worked for a Further Education College where I was involved in researching and integrating “new” technologies into the education context (think relatively simple, by today’s standards, content across various media types on a state of the art web platform for the late nineteen nineties).  While I enjoyed the role there wasn’t really any career progression within the College so, having read an job advert for RM in a national newspaper, I decided to apply to RM and the rest is history. 

What attracted me to RM was the focus on the education sector, it felt very much like a company with a mission rather than a stereotypical, heartless “corporate” profit generator.  I can honestly say after nearly 24 years with the business that while, yes, we need to make a profit, we do so in an ethical way through delivering value to our customers.  We do the “right” things for our customers. 

While it’s difficult to fairly compare RM to other companies (having been here so long) I know from friends, family and colleagues in other sectors that RM’s culture and values isn’t the norm.  RM feels more like a community of like minded individuals working to deliver for our customers with many staff citing that “people make RM”.  It definitely does.  I’ve made lifelong friendships over the years that have extended beyond the business when colleagues have decided to move on.    

I’ve had many great experiences with RM with perhaps the most memorable being the opportunity to travel to India on multiple occasions.  I first visited Bengaluru (formally Bangalore) in 2004 where, with a couple of Indian colleagues, we hosted a series of interviews in a local hotel to recruit the beginnings of our support operation in India.  In two decades, we now have over 300 colleagues working collaboratively to deliver for our customers (and I’ve been fortunate enough to see India and our operation there evolve and grow). 

I occasionally get asked do I ever see myself leaving RM.  In all honesty as long as I find the work interesting, I have the opportunity to develop and our values align, I could easily see myself ending my career having been an RM “lifer”.