Women in power - Pauline

Head of operations – energy markets

I’m Pauline and I came to SSE in 2001 through our acquisition of SWALEC. I’m originally from Cardiff, but now live and work in Perth. My route to SSE has encompassed Welsh Water, SWALEC, and British Energy, so I’ve been in large scale industries pretty much since I left University, where I studied Economics.

Following University, I had a summer placement that developed into a role with South Wales Electricity in their contracting team. Within 2 years, I started managing people, moving into the settlements team as a team leader and then working up to managing the Cardiff team a few years later.  In 2011, I moved from Cardiff to Perth to manage the Wholesale Trading Settlements team.  A sideways move that opened up a range of possibilities.  Six years ago, I was promoted to lead the Back Office team within Energy Markets and since then my role has continued to adapt and expand to cover a wide range of enabling and business control services. My team ensures that our assets are registered to market, that we have good quality data to make the right decisions, the accuracy of all energy related income and expenditure.  We’re responsible for invoicing and prompt payment of all wholesale energy and industry settlement costs on behalf of all the Energy Businesses, so we deal with a huge range of industry rules and contracts and are dealing with sums that run into the billions of pounds.  Through the Energy Markets Business Assurance team, we support the Energy Markets team in doing the right thing by assuring our processes and testing our business controls.

SSE has a great culture.  I’ve worked with a variety of people during my career, a huge mix of different personalities, backgrounds and viewpoints and I tend to find that people are very proud of working for the organisation.  People work their hardest to do their best and you know you can rely on each other, particularly when working on projects with tight deadlines. Whilst the general scope of my role has remained similar or has grown as I’ve been promoted, there have been new, fresh challenges that have been coming along all the time, no two days are ever the same. I’ve always wanted to try and do the best that I can and fulfil my own potential. I’ve always been quite keen to try and expand my own knowledge base, throughout my career I’ve been driven by personal growth but also making sure that I deliver a really, really good service and I do the best that I can do each day. I really enjoy coaching and developing others, I get huge satisfaction from seeing members of my team being successful in their careers through using the skills and knowledge they have gained whilst in the Back Office.

At SSE, there are so many opportunities in different disciplines throughout the business that are suitable for people with different backgrounds, education and experience and we really should celebrate this.  I feel that SSE is now a more inclusive organisation than when I started. Our flexible first and family friendly policies are great and we’re doing a lot as an organisation to promote female leadership. For example, I’m a member of the Energy Markets Exec Committee, and am delighted that female leaders are equally represented.

I’m really, really proud of what I’ve achieved. I’ve come from a working-class background where nobody had been to university, I’m pleased I was able to do this. I set myself some goals when I left university and I’ve absolutely beaten everything that I set out to achieve. I’m a working mum with a rewarding role, and I’m incredibly proud of the success that I’ve had since I joined to SSE.

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