Caroline Burgess

I have spent the last twenty one years of my career working in the energy sector, somewhat unintentionally to start with, as I initially wanted to be a vet. On reflection, I am very pleased that didn’t happen for me –I would be a terrible vet as I am far too emotional over animals!

I started my energy career in the Renewables sector as a Trainee Project Manager, being deployed to site at 21 years old to deliver new build windfarm projects. It was a time when the wind turbine industry was developing at an incredibly fast pace and as a result my career grew quickly, giving me a solid foundation for working in a fast paced, project delivery environment, whilst learning the new build process and funding models to build an emerging industry.

After five years I felt ready for a change, and I joined the Oil and Gas industry, initially as a Planner as it was deemed that as a non technical person I couldn’t project manage technical projects within Oil and Gas – this quickly changed with the market crash and as a Commercial Project Manager I moved into running large scale CapEx projects based predominantly out of West Africa. That in itself was a huge education, and taught me a new level of ways of working, of resilience and of adapting to changing cultures and environments.

I spent a period of time with an energy consultancy firm, which was so interesting to see a different side of energy, but my heart lay in production, and I returned to work for Tyco,  leading three delivery teams, focussing on cost effective engineering and delivery solutions. I remained there for five years, progressing into Business Management, before joining the nuclear industry and EDF in 2022.