Forty Years of Work Today
Richard Anderson
Experienced Board Chair, Committee Chair and Non-Executive Director, Board Advisor, Risk Consultant
It is exactly forty years today since I started my first full time job. At 4.30pm on 2 September 1980 I started with Coopers & Lybrand, starting with a few weeks introduction at Keele University. I had some fantastic times and learned so much through my 21 years with that firm. Some of the lessons were life lessons: I learned that you did not have to be liked by everyone to be successful. I learned that friendships and work colleagues were not necessarily the same thing. And I learned that loyalty was often a one way street. But much of what l learned can really be summed up as professionalism and that has stood me in good stead for everything I did then and have done since.
Career 2.0 for me came after 21 years with C&L/PwC as I embarked on periods of self-employment interspersed with periods in smaller practices. Moments of great joy landing jobs and delivering reports or writing thought leadership (some of which is still referenced) were mixed with moments of wondering where the next assignment was going to come from. In this stage I also laid the groundwork for the next stage of my career by becoming first a director of the IRM and then Chair for three years. Career 2.0 also gave me much more opportunity to watch my daughters grow up than many of my former colleagues. There is some poetry that one of my daughters starts her full time career this very week!
Career 3.0 started with a phone call asking me to sit on an interview panel for a CRO and which in turn led me to joining the board of Pay.UK and then the board of BCR, which I now chair. I am loving career 3.0 as a portfolio NED and I fervently hope that the portfolio will continue to grow and develop.
As I reflect on the last forty years, I think it is the people that make the difference. I had great role models at C&L: Yew Meng Fong, the first supervisor I worked for, Peter Locke my first Group Manager and David Caddy, who was what was known as our Group Uncle. But I also recently spoke to two people who at different stages I had recruited: years later they still remember that I, as they both said, took a risk and recruited them and both flourish today. And of course I met my current partner through another graduate that I recruited!
So here’s to the next however many years of my career!
Head Of Legal at Pay.UK
4 年Interesting time to start a job, 4.30pm. Well done, Richard!
Risk management soft skills researcher and writer at independent
4 年Congratulations on this anniversary.
MSc CEng FIMechE FIET FRSA Non-Exec Chair and Director, Chartered Engineer, Past President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Mentor to Young Entrepreneurs
4 年Congratulations Richard I bet you have seen corporate risks change in the last 40 years. Best wishes Geoff
Expert Witness, Regulator, Non-Executive Director, Audit & Finance Committee Chair.
4 年Tin trunks for paper files, floppy discs for suitcase size computers with screens the size of a satnav, changing the little coloured pens in the first colour printers to produce a report at midnight, discovering life at the end of the tube line in Uxbridge .... memories, but as you say Richard it was always the people that made the difference whether clients, colleagues, friends or family. Fantastic role models, experiences and memories that made us what we are and serve us all amazingly well in so many ways. A very big thank you to so many - including you! Good to hear you are thriving - hope to catch up soon. All best Stephen