Online and External Fulfilment and Customer Support, Global Fulfilment - Twenty one years

So far, I’ve spent the majority of my career here, though I originally wanted to be a nurse. I even went to college for a year to do a hospital administration course. However, just after that, I moved from Somerset to Oxford and saw an opportunity at Elsevier in the mailing lists department. At the time, we were owned by Robert Maxwell - I can still remember the offices shaking every time his helicopter landed.

Over the following years, I took on various secretarial and PA roles around the Publishing side of the business until I got involved in the Y2K project. I was still providing admin support, but also took responsibility for the satellite offices in terms of gearing them up for the change. I hardly tasted the Chinese takeaway I had on 1 Jan 2000. I was too nervous about someone calling with an emergency. Thankfully, there weren’t any calls - the project was deemed to be a success.

From there, I moved into the Service Management team as an IT Problem Manager. The role involved focusing on root cause analyses of IT incidents, drilling down through data to understand and rectify any problems, and ensuring they didn’t happen in the future. One key issue was the ‘I love you’ virus which wreaked havoc with our systems. While I was there, we also ran the IT helpdesk for three months.

Management changes led to another move, this time to the Journals Customer Service department. Specifically, I became a Team Manager with Major Trade Customers - agents who place orders on behalf of end customers. Responsible for up to 17 staff, I travelled around European book fairs to meet agents and Publishers and find out how we could improve our services. I must have made an impression, as I soon went on to a six-month secondment mapping Journals Customer Service processes, and then spent two years managing the E-Care customer service team.

Then, I took on the challenge of outsourcing some aspects of our global customer service, which meant going to the States to oversee the supplier company’s training. Today, I’m still performing a project-based role, and am now working on reporting and resolving productivity and quality issues. My next project is likely to involve the integration of two fulfilment systems.

Despite initially thinking of my move to Elsevier as a temporary one, I’ve never had to look elsewhere for a new challenge. I particularly enjoy meeting new people across the business and understanding how they’re driving it. Of course, the fact everything we do focuses on developing science, health and technology is hugely exciting too.

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