CAREERS ENGINEERING CHANGE Cathy Sinclair is a group manager, field engineering, at FM Global How did you enter the world of risk management? Following my mechanical engineering degree, I quickly realised that my skills lay in consulting with clients and solving problems, so when I came across a field engineering role with FM Global in 1995, it sounded interesting and relevant even though I didnt know much about risk management at that point. After some excellent training, I was liaising directly with clients and helping them understand the hazards and exposures that their businesses faced from property-related perils such as fire, explosion, flood, earthquake, equipment breakdown, and so on. I worked as a field engineer for 15 years, developing particular specialisms within the food and pharmaceutical industries. I moved into my current role as a group manager, field engineering, in 2010. Im responsible for a team of 11 engineers (eight in the UK and three in South Africa). What does best practice in risk management look like? Best risk management practice is a combination of physical protection with excellent robust procedures to support this.Physical protection could be ensuring that a plant is well protected against a fire, with a properly engineered sprinkler system, gas, water mist or other fire protection system. Robust procedures are crucial in reducing the likelihood of an incident; for example, having strict control over ignition sources, or ensuring maintenance procedures are thorough and appropriately time-based. These procedures also include responses to an incident that could hurt a business, such as ensuring an effective emergency response, or identifying potential alternative sources of key equipment or suppliers ahead of any incident, to support recovery. Describe a typical day In my current role Im a leader, a technical resource for my team, and a coach/ mentor. On any day, I could be based in the office reviewing reports from my engineers, or I could be out on site trailing my engineers to a visit, or attending client meetings to support a new construction project. I also regularly get involved in complex technical questions from my team. Im heavily involved in mentoring and training the newer engineers to ensure that they quickly get to grips with the wide field engineering role and become productive and useful. What are the best and worst aspects of your role? The variety is fantastic. No day is ever the same, and there are always new challenges to face and problems to solve. I also enjoy the day-to-day interaction with my team; I have a great group of engineers that work for me and I get a real kick out of seeing them get great results with a client, using a combination of their technical and soft skills. One of the worst aspects is, undoubtedly, when an engineer in my group gets negative feedback. This is extremely rare, but my focus is always to ensure that the engineer learns from the situation and the impact that it had, and then quickly moves on. What has been your greatest achievement? When it comes to risk, Africa is a challenging continent to work in because risk management practices are not that well established, for the most part. However, I was extremely proud of building our engineering team out there; they are responsible for supporting the risk management efforts of the vast majority of our clients in the region. It was a very significant project and one I enjoyed immensely. What advice would you give to an aspiring or upand-coming risk professional? I would focus on the following areas: n Be flexible and open to change, whether that is small change in your day to day job or a bigger change, such as moving overseas for a role that could further your career n Take the time to understand a clients business and talk their language n Keep up to date with technology and understand how it can help you n Dont overlook the soft skills technical ability is good, but it is nothing without the ability to communicate and convince on all levels n Recognise and respond to the inevitable immediacy of the world today n Establish a network of contacts and be sure to use them.