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| A United Kingdom Perspective |
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| | Graduate Profile: Keir Halewood
Job Title: EAME Manufacturing and Process Application Support Team Leader
Studied: BSc and MChem in Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh
Started 1999
I chose to apply to ExxonMobil because I wanted the opportunity to work for a large blue-chip organisation. The other attractions for me were that as global organisation ExxonMobil presented opportunities for travel, and the fact they have a Graduate Development programme with the very prestigious London Business School.
After joining with the company my first role was working for a global project to deliver an encryption service to the entire Corporation. Since I am not from an IT background this was quite a steep learning curve but the Company always make sure you have the opportunity to do the right training at the right time and it was not long before I was able to get to grips with the role. Within the first few months of joining I was making transatlantic trips to talk with technology vendors and business customers about the project’s requirements and potential solutions. Eventually I was the technical lead on the project making sure the right designs and installation practices were in place to deliver the encryption service to the Corporation.
My second role was a move into the e-business support organisation. Here I developed and applied the skills learned in my previous role to the support of the Intranet and Internet services the Corporation run. This was right at the time of the merger of Exxon and Mobil and a whole new Intranet and Internet infrastructure was being put in place as well as many new customer facing Internet projects. It really was a challenge to keep existing services running, whilst supporting new services coming in, and making sure there was seamless transition from one to the other. Again there were some opportunities to travel with this role as the infrastructure we were deploying was largely based in Continental Europe.
My third role was as an internal consultant within the infrastructure services area. This was an incredibly varied role providing the business and projects with advice on how to use the services that the IT organisation provide, as well as helping projects to deliver. The work was very varied, one day I could be working on a Fuels Marketing system in hosted in Paris, and the next I could be helping the Upstream organisation with the handling of their seismic data in Aberdeen. Achieving this was only possible due to extensive use of remote collaboration technologies. This role really helped me gain a great understanding of all the different business within ExxonMobil and how they work.
My fourth role was an assignment as a technical consultant in a project team delivering a new web-enabled refining application called Data Visualisation. This technology had not previously been used in ExxonMobil, and the project was a global initiative to install the application at all our refineries around the world. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit a number of refineries across the world to work directly with the business to configure the application to display their sites key business and process control data via a browser interface.
My current role is as a Team Leader leading a group of people across the globe to support, develop and provide business consulting for the Data Visualisation application. The use of this service is growing and we are currently rolling out to the Chemicals business, and we have just started some installations with the Upstream. Each business requires different capabilities from the application and it’s a really interesting challenge to provide a service that meets such a diverse set of business requirements.
Looking back I really cannot believe how fast my time at ExxonMobil has gone. The work has always been challenging and rewarding and I can honestly say I’ve never struggled to get out of bed in the morning to get to work! The Company has met or exceeded my expectations at each stage of my career and looking forwards I’m sure the future will be just as interesting and rewarding.
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