Reflections on a UNICEF career ... on the inside and outside

I was recently asked to write a piece for UNICEF's Human Resources newsletter about how I have managed my career so far. This is what I wrote:

As the world celebrated the new Millennium, I was working as a BBC TV News producer based in London. Some of the filming I had recently done for a series of reports on children’s rights was with UNICEF in Honduras, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

The UNICEF staff I met while filming were very professional. I was impressed by their passion for their mission and loved the mix of people from all over the world working together to promote the rights of children. UNICEF people seemed to me to be dedicated, effective and fun.

So when Ruth Landy, the head of the TV unit, e mailed me a job advertisement for an in-house video producer with the Division of Communication (a P3 Communication Officer) I changed my flight home from a holiday in Australia to visit UNICEF HQ in New York.

After a long day of conversations, I was asked to fill in a P11 form by hand and left alone in what became my first office at UNICEF House as everyone left for the day. I wasn’t finished filling in that terrible, archaic form (still in use to this day) until well after 7pm and only Gary on the front desk was there to wish me farewell.

A few months later I received a letter of appointment in the mail and decided to give it a go despite having no idea whether the P3 salary would cover the cost of living in New York or what the complicated formulas for “post adjustment” and “rental subsidy” were meant to add up to. My BBC colleagues and friends at UNICEF UK were thrilled for me and some, I later discovered, even a little bit jealous.

Little did I realize then that I had landed the opportunity of a lifetime and 18 years later, I have to say that it was the best career and life decision I ever made.

After 12 years as a journalist with the Western Mail in Wales, Reuters in Hong Kong and London and the BBC in London, I embarked on a new career in international development communications. And, to my surprise, my first pay slip and a strong US dollar indicated that my salary had almost doubled.

For seven happy years, under the leadership of wonderful supervisors Bill Hetzer, Ruth Landy, Dee Searle and Stephen Cassidy, I travelled to 26 developing countries to film UNICEF programmes, Goodwill Ambassadors and even Nelson Mandela.

When Sharad Sapra became the Director of Communication, I was promoted to P4 and empowered to innovate and drive change.

Digital technology was changing the TV paradigm, and I will never forget producing and publishing a video story from Afghanistan on the UNICEF.org website which had been filmed in Kabul that same day by Eddie Carwardine and transferred over the UNICEF ICT system. Now we could actually compete with TV broadcasters and deliver our news to our audience ourselves. It was a day of firsts and we never looked back.

Other innovations included the creation of UNIFEED – a UN-wide video distribution service to all major TV channels. I had proposed the idea to the UN’s Director of TV Susan Farkas and Stephen Cassidy and Sharad Sapra saw the value in funding the consultant producer to make it run. More than 14 years later UNIFEED has grown into one of the UN’s most successful communication services and that consultant, Paula Harrington, is now a UN staffer. UNICEF innovation at work.

Another of UNICEF’s many innovations (this time in the field of HR) was a training programme offered to all staff called P2D (Professional x Personal Development) in which it was made very clear that it was up to every one of us to manage our own career paths. So that is exactly what I did by leaving a “safe” UNICEF staff job to join the fledgling Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) on a one-year reimbursable loan.

While recognizing that I had the best job in the world at UNICEF, I also wanted to grow to become a more all-round communication professional and, one day, a leader in my field. I didn’t want to be the “UNICEF video guy” forever and without any obvious UNICEF opportunities on the horizon I took a risk, resigned my post and moved my family to Geneva.

The UNICEF HR officer who conducted my exit interview told me I was “daft” to leave but couldn’t offer me any compelling reasons to stick around.

I had told the GAVI Director of Communications Jeffrey Rowland exactly what I wanted from the move and he promised to help me achieve it. He was true to his word and for six exciting years I was his deputy and later his successor running a successful media and communications team of a dozen international professionals. GAVI is a public-private partnership founded by UNICEF, WHO, World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and so I continued to work closely with UNICEF friends and colleagues around the world as we supported the introduction of new vaccines for children in developing countries.

I always hoped to return to UNICEF one day, but I didn’t get that opportunity until 10 years later in September 2017 when, ending my second term as Spokesperson for the President of the UN General Assembly, Director of Communications Paloma Escudero kindly offered me a short-term consultancy to support the Children Uprooted campaign.

It was an enjoyable and rewarding project led by the brilliant Marta Arias, but with a family to feed and educate, I needed more security and applied for a number of staff jobs at UNICEF and the UN system.

At that time I read on UNICEF’s intranet that Mehmet Korkmaz was pioneering a new Career Development training for staff and he kindly allowed me to join one of the first sessions. It was there under the guidance of Mehmet, career counsellor Jane Adams and with the help of a dozen UNICEF colleagues that I was able to take a bird’s eye view of my career so far as well as an honest look at my motivations, strengths and weaknesses.

We literally drew our careers – the highs and the lows – and laughed out loud together in sharing our stories and perspectives on our career progression.

It was a day to remember and we learned a lot from each other. Once again, the message was loud and clear: the best person to manage your career is you …. so don’t wait, start planning.

I left that excellent workshop with a useful set of materials, fresh ideas, energy and renewed enthusiasm to find the right next job … at UNICEF or elsewhere.

In fact I didn’t have to wait too long and with some useful coaching from Jane Adams, I was able to secure my current post as Chief of Communications at UN Global Compact.

As my first employer in the UN system, I consider UNICEF to be my “alma mater”. I have made so many friends and for 18 years I have advocated for children at GAVI, the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, the Office of the President of the General Assembly and will continue to do so at UN Global Compact.

The former UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Kul Gautam used to say: “Once a UNICEF, always a UNICEF!” and in my case he was absolutely right.