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| A United Kingdom Perspective |
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Name: Lauren Jones
Degree: BSc Chemistry with Management
University: University of Bath
Job Title: European Business Support Analyst
Employer: ExxonMobil Gas and Power Marketing
Location: Leatherhead
When I came out of University with a drive to pursue a commercial role, I had previously done work experience during a sandwich year based in a chemistry laboratory but wanted to explore the management part of my degree a little more. At the same time, I still wanted to use the analytical and problem solving skills that I had developed in the Chemistry part of my degree. So, with this in mind, I applied to ExxonMobil’s Gas and Power Marketing department and it did not disappoint! Gas and Power Marketing has offered me a whole host of opportunities from training to good job prospects to meeting and working with a whole range of highly skilled people.
My first role was in our European Short Term sales Team, a highly operational part of the business, where I worked as a Sales Negotiator. The role was highly interactive with a wide and diverse range of people within the business but also involved a great degree of networking outside the company with counterparties. On a daily basis, I would execute sale and purchase transactions of natural gas on the UK and continental trading markets depending on market prices and conditions. The job involved fast decision making and a good analytical eye to ensure that the business captures the most value it can out of each sale. Every day was different depending on which companies were out in the markets, what positions they were holding but also importantly our own supply/demand position. This was very exciting and highly social role. It involved networking internally ensuring strong relations with our supply planners and gas operations teams who actually get the gas to your customers. But, also externally building relations with counterparties with a few social events to build these relationships!
Gas and Power Marketing’s aim is to expose you to as much of the business as possible in your career both when you start but further along in your career. This means that you will be moved into a wide variety of different roles and I moved after just 1 year into our European Business Analysis Group. This group supports all the European business acting as a consulting group for analytical work to help facilitate the business activities from contract negotiations to optimising operations of our LNG projects. My analytical role was supporting our Natural Gas Liquids business but also our Infrastructure and Supply activities in the North Sea. This role is totally different to my previous role offering me the opportunity to work with negotiators on huge projects. These involved building new pipelines, ensuring our NGL processing facilities in Scotland operative effectively and efficiently and ensuring our operations deliver gas to the markets in the most economic way. I now run economics for projects, advise on best options of projects from a value perspective and have developed a huge range of skills not possible in my old job.
The best aspects about ExxonMobil for me are two fold; the first is the training that is given to you from day one. All new graduates are brought up to speed with extensive training through workshops when they first start. From there, training is constant not only on the job but out of the work place on specific key skills from negotiating contracts to team work. With this kind of foundation, it then allows you to come up the curve faster and really make an impact in moving the business forward and adding value.
The second aspect is the global nature of the company. With this brings a host of opportunities to work on projects from America to the Middle East and beyond and the opportunity to work within a diverse work force every step of your career. The true mix of nationalities means I’ve never stopped learning from everyone’s knowledge and experience from the global Natural Gas industry. When I joined ExxonMobil I never thought I’d end up friends with so many different nationalities!
From my first two years, I have realised that this company really can offer the opportunities that it says it can. Everyday, I am surprised at the diversity of people and work that I am involved with. I wanted a challenge when I joined ExxonMobil, I wanted to be pushed and use my skills and that is what ExxonMobil has given me. So roll on the next learning curve!
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