People

Overseas..... with Amey: Hannah Tully on her international bidding role

Hannah Tully, Amey international bid manager

Hannah Tully, 27, has  a business qualification and joined Amey in 2007 from Her Majesty’s Court Service. She is now international bid programme manager and travels regularly to wherever the job takes her around the world.

What does the job involve?  

I manage our international programme of bids across all our territories. I travel to each territory as and when required and I am abroad from one week to three months at a time. My career has always taken precedence over plans to travel so this way I get the best of both worlds.

What was attractive about the job? 

The opportunity for a diverse role and the challenges I would face as a predominately UK based resource supporting all our bidding activity overseas

What were some of the challenges? 

International is new to Amey so I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy transition. I started my journey to international working by applying for a six week secondment to process manage a joint venture tender to deliver road maintenance for Transport Main Roads in Queensland, Australia. It was daunting to think about how far away from my family I would be and I was certainly nervous about the flight! I was also leaving a large JV bid in the UK halfway through the tender process so was concerned about handing over.

How has it worked out? 

My placement was eventually extended and I spent four months between Brisbane and Sydney before coming home for six weeks and returning for a further three months. I coordinated JV submissions to TMR in Queensland and another bid for Roads and Maritime Services in New South Wales. We were successful on both! I gained overseas bidding experience that along with my three years UK experience enabled me to successfully apply for the role within the UK based international team to look after bidding.

How is it helping your career? 

Due to my experiences in Australia, I now have an empathy with those working overseas so often provide assistance with a number of matters outside of my day to day role. I have dealt with numerous new challenges so my role is much more varied than it is on paper.

Are you doing anything abroad that you wouldn’t have the opportunity to do in the UK? 

I have to factor in different time zones, cultures and legislations on a day to day basis; it is difficult to co-locate our bid teams all the time so we have to be smarter with different ways of working in order to achieve the same result. The international division is doing a lot of work to develop consistent working practices across the territories.

What attitudes would you bring back to the UK? 

From my experience in Australia, they certainly have a better work life balance there than the UK and that is something that I have improved on over the past year.

Tell us about your typical day? 

Since starting as Bid Programme Manager for International, I have not had a typical day. Things can change so quickly across the territories but at a minimum I monitor and report on programme, budget and resource for all our international bids. I support activity in Australia, US and Qatar and provide bidding expertise to our parent company Ferrovial.

What has been the highlight of your time so far? 

Professionally it was the day we submitted the first stage of the Transport Main Roads bid. I was the only Amey representative left on the ground in the final week in Queensland so I was proud to be trusted with that level of responsibility. Personally it has been the life-long friends I have made along the way; oh, and tackling my fear of flying head on!

Would you recommend others to work abroad? 

Absolutely; you gain invaluable experiences professionally and personally. I always say ‘what’s the worst that can happen, you don’t like it? Then you can go home’! From experience, it’s amazing how quickly you fit back into the routine.

Read here: Gareth Jefferies on working in Qatar with Amey  

Find out more about Amey's consulting business and its international work at www.amey.co.uk

If you would like to contact Jackie Whitelaw about this, or any other story, please email jackie.whitelaw@infrastructure-intelligence.com.