MDE Profiles: Steven Smith

Personal Profile

I’m Steve. I’m from South-East England but Bristol has been home now for 20 years. I live with my Hungarian Vizsla called Tuaca (pronounced Too-Ack-Ah. It’s an Italian Liqueur)

Favourite hobbies: Skiing, Roller Skating (80s quads of course), movies, playing Guitar Hero, painting, darts

Favourite marine creature: Moray Eel (after a close encounter)

Party trick: Lame magic tricks

2 truths & a lie:

• I have a Black Belt in Karate
• I slept in the same bed as the Queen
• I can play the Moonlight Sonata on the Piano

Career Profile

I’m Steve. I’m from South-East England but Bristol has been home now for 20 years. I live with my Hungarian Vizsla called Tuaca (pronounced Too-Ack-Ah. It’s an Italian Liqueur)

Responsibilities: I am responsible for the Ascent Delivery team. I make sure that the team have everything they need to do their jobs and deal with any escalations or blockers. I keep track of budgets and ensure the agreed objectives are met. I report project progress internally and work with TCE to plan and resource future phases of the project.

Why did you choose this career? I progressed to Project Management following a few years in IT Support. The career chose me, I was better at organising the work than doing it.

What do you love about your job? I love seeing the team achieving their objectives and a happy client. This project in particular has a great team which helps to stay motivated every day. I love delivering solutions that add benefit to customers.

What do you find challenging about your work? Sometimes things go wrong. When they do, staying calm and focussed on what needs to be done to resolve the issues can be challenging , but very satisfying when resolutions are found.

Skills:

• IT Project
• Delivery Management
• Agile/Scrum/Waterfall

Career Pathway:

After leaving school I had jobs in Telesales, an Insurance Broker, Insurance Customer Services and Underwriting before being asked to join the IT Helpdesk. There was a lack of business empathy and customer service skills in the IT dept at the time. So business people were moved into IT to help improve the service. I was one of them. I gained MCSE certification and eventually had an opportunity to assist a project manager with technical aspects of a major project.

After leaving Insurance I went to work for a Finance company as an Ecommerce Project Manager. I gained PRINCE2 Practitioner certification and delivered the UKs first online leasing system. I have remained a Project/Delivery Manager ever since, working for AOL I was introduced to Agile methodology and gained ScrumMaster certification. I spent 10 years contracting as a Project Manager working in many diverse industries (Airlines, Travel, Prisons, Construction, etc). I joined Ascent 4 years ago and joined the MDE team in November 2022.

Advise to someone looking to move into the marine/digital sector:

Believe in yourself. You probably know a lot more than you think.