Tony Rooke

Title: UK Environmental Programme Manager / Group Environmental Champion
Business Area: Energy, Utilities & Telecoms (EUT)
University: Edinburgh University
Major: BSc Hons Physics
Additional qualifications: PGCE Secondary School Science, Cambridge University &
PhD High Energy Particle Physics, UCL.
Year started: 1998

1998
2001
2003
2005
2005
2006

1998

I joined a London-based project in our Space division, supporting a ground control system for communications satellites and finished my thesis while also delivering on the project. I was promoted into a Team Leader role in my second year, leading a team of four to meet a very strict deadline and tight budget.

2001

I fancied a fresh challenge in the ballooning telecoms arena and became a System Engineer working for our client, BT, on their network-facing control systems. I worked on site in Croydon and was soon promoted by the client into a solution design role. Meanwhile, my Staff Manager and Programme Manager encouraged me to take over the project management duties and I asked, successfully, to become a Deputy Staff Manager. It was tricky learning and balancing all these new roles but it taught me a lot about how to handle people and manage my time.

2003

Three months after an interview for the role of Project Manager with our Australian operations I found myself in Sydney (just in time for 2003 Rugby World Cup Finals). I had several Project Manager roles for a number of telecommunications clients (from software deliveries and professional services to support and international SMS hardware installations), managed and co-ordinated bids of up to $100million and also got more involved in the business side of things. That gave me experience in areas like profit and loss, and boosted my confidence in delivering different kinds of project. I also saw a lot of rugby world cup matches (including meeting the England team in New Zealand and getting to the final).

2005

Before coming back to the UK I took a nine-month career break at my own request to travel the world, and had an amazing time visiting every continent on the planet (but that’s another story).

2005

I was ready to settle down in the UK when I saw an opportunity on our internal jobs board to work with the European Space Agency just outside Rome. So within a week of arriving back from Oz, I was driving myself and the account manager to Frascati ready for my first meeting with the client. The role was as a Technical Project Manager and involved managing multiple contractors over various international sites (fortunately, mostly in English) as well as working alongside the Client Manager. It was difficult work but ultimately very rewarding.

2006

Back in the Telecoms business unit in the UK I helped bid for and then manage a couple of projects for BT. On top of this, I put together a business idea around the environment and energy efficiency, and pursued internal contacts to build it as a proposition to our clients. Thanks to this networking, I was able to present a business case to our facilities management team as a starting point for a UK environmental programme. We launched this in November 2006 and I’ve been running the programme since. It has grown from its initial scope in the UK and now I’m co-ordinating environmental programmes across the other countries in the group.

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