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Jon is well used to long hours and being knee-deep in black gold, working as a market analyst in the oil and gas industry for ConocoPhillips. But as you are reading this, he is more likely to be sleep-deprived and knee-deep in nappies.
Jon’s and his wife’s first child was due on 27 March and paternity leave will no doubt be a rude awakening and leave him little time for much else. But YP did manage to catch up with him before the big event.
While the impending birth was much anticipated, Jon admitted that he couldn’t let his mind wander too far, as work had been more frantic than ever. He’s been travelling a lot, with Rome, Barcelona and Amsterdam just some of the destinations he has visited recently.
As part of his aim to move towards business development, he has undertaken his first negotiation for the company. While Jon can’t give away the details of the deal, he did describe what it was like.
‘It was quite stressful, there were eight of them and three of us and it was quite adversarial, but you would expect that in a high-stakes conversation,’ says Jon.
‘It’s not the sort of thing you can do without some training,’ he adds. ‘Otherwise it would be easy to say something that would cause problems or give the game away as to your position’. On the outcome of the negotiations, he says that the team ‘got what we needed’.
He also has several other pieces of work vying for his attention, some arriving at short notice, such as an assignment of bidding on assets. On top of this, he is also busy outside of work as treasurer for a charity that helps the blind in Fulham.
But all of this will stop for a few short weeks. Fortunately, he says the company is set up to let him work flexibly and work from home when needed. Something he will no doubt have to take advantage of more often from now on.
Veronika
When YP last spoke with Veronika, she was in the midst of a global internal audit project for JP Morgan, and not much has changed aside from her first foray into modelling for our makeover feature last month. The work assignment continues and another similar piece of work looms on the horizon.
According to Veronika, such projects typically take one month to complete the
fieldwork and another two to agree everything with all the parties involved.
‘It is a huge company, so everything takes a bit longer to discuss and resolve,’
she says. After nearly a year at the investment bank, Veronika says the
elongated way of some projects was ‘something of a surprise’. Her previous work
as an external auditor meant she was in and out of companies quite quickly and
often felt ‘like a machine’.
Now on the internal audit side, she says she feels closer to her clients the auditees, as she calls them. The relationship and the insight she gains is also much improved. ‘They understand that we are not the enemy, we are trying to help,’ she says.
The scale of the corporation she works for and the inherent complexities that brings means she has not progressed as far as she may have in external audit, but she accepts the reasons why and is happy in her role. She also has greater opportunity for development, having just started her Securities and Investment Institute training. She is also involved in a more local project that requires her to learn about technology.
‘It’s a good combination some projects I’m comfortable with and some I’m not, but want to learn about.’
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