My Six Months in Review

Exactly six months ago, I sat down for my Welcome to Mantel Group session as one of the 2022 Future Associate cohort, and the time has flown by. Reflecting back (and reading my weekly blogs to remind myself of everything that has happened), I want to share some of the highlights and memorable moments of the program so far.

TL;DR - Being at Mantel Group has been an amazing experience. The people I meet, the culture we have, the work I am part of, it all comes together to make me actually want to come to work each day.

1. The first on this list has to be the Mantel Group Snow Trip that took place this past weekend because the experience is so fresh in my mind. To head up to Falls Creek with almost 80 other #Mantelorians, carving down the mountain on my snowboard, and getting to know people that I haven’t had the chance to chat with before. It is amazing that there are so many snow enthusiasts in the group, and I am already looking forward to the 2023 edition of the trip. Check out my TikTok recap of the trip below!
2. Being a Future Associate means following a structured training and development schedule whilst being an Associate. The cohort that I am a part of is amazing, and going through these sessions and working on projects together has made the transition into Mantel Group such an enjoyable one. It is even greater when I, the only Perth-based on the program, gets to travel to Melbourne (in April) and Sydney (later this week) to meet up with everyone in person. We say that the culture is what makes Mantel Group special, and the Future Associates have definitely been a major highlight from day one. Special thanks go to Kerry C. and Katie Wilson for organising this program and always being there during every step of the journey.
3. Speaking of culture, many places say they have a good one, but at Mantel Group they really put words into action and live by their five principles. They are ingrained in so much of what we do and everyone in the organisation puts effort in to make them present, visible, and influential. For me, my favourite one is ‘Make Things Better’ as I love to build solutions and help to improve things where I can. Saying that, all of the principles are so applicable to everything we do, and they drive so many decisions about how we work that makes working here so enjoyable (and flexible).
4. Building on from culture, the House of Brands strategy that Mantel Group has implemented is such a unique selling point. Currently there are eight brands across the three pillars of Cloud, Data, and Digital that we operate. I love working for CMD Solutions , but having access to experts across all three major clouds, data science and data engineering, as well as software development and design means that every question that I have, I can easily find the answer. It also aligns well with my career development, as I can plan what roles I would like to take on and which projects I want to be involved in, across this technology landscape, all staying within the Mantel Group.
5. Looking at the brands, I am so happy to have joined CMD, and even more so in their data practice. I wanted to develop my software/data engineering skills after my data science studies, and this is the perfect role to build data-focussed AWS infrastructure. The brand has made me feel welcomed from the moment I started, and again special mention to Ahsanul Hadi who is my People Guide that looks out for my career development, as well as Chris T. who runs the CMD data team. It was great to be able to come out to Sydney in June to meet the team in person, and I have learnt so much already, as well as been able to build some cool stuff using tools like Terraform that I had never used before.

I could go on about so many of the great experiences I have had, but then this post would turn into an essay. I am also excited looking forward to some of the things I am currently involved in such as some of my project work as well as being involved in raising the brand awareness of Mantel Group (current post included). Stay tuned for the 12 month update for what I am predicting is even more great experiences to share. If you are curious about my experience in more detail, check out datasciencewithdaniel on TikTok where I have documented many of these experiences, as well as feel free to reach out anytime.

Now I cannot mention everyone here that has impacted my journey as it would run into the hundreds, there are over 100 people on my network map where I track those I have the chance to sit down and have a chat with. Special mention in addition to those above are the Future Associates: Ruhaab Sheikh , Julia Sharnina , Kosta B. , Ethan M. , Adam Schlicht , Nauvoo ?? P , Edward Astbury , Victoria G. Vargas , Colin Loh , Kimia Moftakhari , Colin McLean , Gareth Bayvel , Oliver W. , Jarrod Membrey , Madison Beare , Christian Torrisi , Chris Denby , Jack Sharkey , without whom my experience would be vastly different. We have had a good first six months, lets make the next six even better!

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