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This summer sees the one-day Cricket World Cup on UK shores for the first time since 1999. Sadly, neither Scotland nor Ireland qualified to take part, but Wales will be represented with a game in Cardiff, and of course, the England captain is Irish.
It promises to be quite the carnival, and if the tournament favourites, England, have a good run, as they are expected to do, I can quite see the country following it avidly.
There’s something to be said for being favourites – for being comfortable that you are bringing the best team, a team that can cope with most situations and always performs with the right spirit.
And that’s not just true of sports. I recently took over leading the highly successful Rockwell Automation UK team from Mark Bottomley, who has taken an international role as sales director for the EMEA North region, and it does feel like getting a head-start, having such a strong unit around me.
What’s more, we’re 50 not out – which is not a bad place to start for me!
Yes, the ever-popular Allen-Bradley brand that we trace our Rockwell Automation history back through, first opened its UK doors in 1969, in Bletchley, spiritual home of the computer.
We still have a site in Bletchley of course, and some staff there who have been part of the team for more than 40 years. There’s more about the start of our birthday celebrations here, including thoughts about how the company culture engenders long job tenures and helps the deep customer relationships that are so important to Rockwell Automation.
Like any well-balanced team, those experienced heads at Rockwell Automation are very important – they offer the guidance and continuity that helps us to grow. They are also vital for the new young talent at the company.
As a registered STEM ambassador, I think it is hugely important that the UK swings fully behind engineering education in the coming years and helps maintain and grow the supply of young talent into teams like ours, as well as those of our customers.
I also believe that the responsibility for engendering that STEM talent of the future lies with all of us in industry, as well as government and education. I am excited to be picking up various Rockwell Automation STEM initiatives, both national and international, and hope to grow them as UK Country Director over the coming months and years, not least the Primary Engineer programmes close to our UK HQ in Milton Keynes.
Similarly, I look forward to picking up the much longer Rockwell Automation traditions of working closely with our customers and developing deep and strong customer relationships. That relationship between vendor and customers has never been more important than now, as the UK seeks to leverage the massive opportunity presented to us in the form of 4IR technologies.
There’s never been a better time to be in our industry, and never a better time to recommend a career in STEM. The horizons of human possibility are being pushed back further and further by digital transformation, and it is people, relationships, partnerships and that ageless, instinctively collaborative engineering fraternity of problem solvers who are making it happen.
I’m very proud to be leading the Rockwell Automation team into this next phase, 50 not out, and looking forwards as always, to what’s yet to come.
Published July 1, 2019
