Dawn Pollard

I started at RM in 2001, and have had a variety of roles within RM. I started as a network support engineer, supporting school network managers and ICT teachers on RM’s then flagship product. I moved to become an operations team leader and managed a number of different teams. I then had an opportunity to turn my hand to project management and became a project manager within the new product introductions team before moving on to manage the team. 

One of the great opportunities that came my way was to go out to our office based in Trivandrum, India for 6 months to work with the operations teams – this was a fantastic opportunity to experience working and living in a different country and culture.

By the time I returned to the UK the Building Schools for the Future programme has started in the UK, with RM winning many of the Managed Service contracts that were being procured as part of the government led programme, I then started to work with schools and Local Authorities as a Service Delivery Manager delivering these contracts. One of the most exciting projects I have worked on was when I was Service Delivery Manager for a contract with a Local Authority in London. It was an extremely challenging contract due to the timescales we had to work to. At time I was very new to role and this experience really threw me in at the deep end. It was character building and a really good grounding for how to manage customers, manage profit and loss and be entrepreneurial. It was good fun and looking back, it is the achievement I am probably most proud of.

More recently I have had the opportunity of looking after the whole of the Operations function within the RM Results division. RM Results is a really interesting place to work. We are experts in online exam authoring, onscreen testing, onscreen marking and the management and analysis of educational data and work with government ministries, exam boards and professional awarding bodies around the world to improve efficiency, accuracy and clarity in the assessment cycle. Within RM Results I really feel that we are truly a part of making a difference if we don’t get our operations right then the risk is that exam results are not issued on time – that clearly isn’t an option when dealing with GCSE’s and A Level exams!

RM Results is a really friendly and supportive culture. People really want to make it work and genuinely believe in what they are doing. What we do ultimately makes a difference. Education needs IT and we understand how IT can make a difference to education. RM Results is entering an exciting time, there is massive growth potential especially internationally and there are lots of doors open to us.

One of the key reasons that people stay within the RM family is due to the type of people that we employ, everyone cares about what we do and their part to play in delivering for our customers. There are also great career opportunities – as long as you are up for a challenge, the level of responsibility from my early career right through to my current role has enabled me to make a difference and to feel like I can continue to make a difference for our customers. RM has been a very exciting place to have a career for 16 years.