You’ve got to love an industry to work in it for nearly a decade, and Amy Millard, Business Development Manager at Royal Wolf, is no exception.
“I liked the industry when I joined Royal Wolf, but I love it now,” says Amy. “I couldn’t imagine myself doing any other job at this stage of my career.”
We asked Amy to take us right back to the start – just how did she end up working so many years at Royal Wolf?
“I started at Royal Wolf in 2012 in a reception role, then the opportunity came up for me to move into an internal sales role. From there I was offered a business development role for a maternity cover,” she explains.
An opportunity to take on another maternity leave followed, and fast-forward to today: “I’m the core fleet Business Development Manager in Sydney, looking after our B2B clients,” says Amy.
A typical day for Amy is visiting clients and developing the relationship between them and Royal Wolf.
“Every customer that comes to us has a problem and my job is to help solve that problem with Royal Wolf containers,” says Amy. “No two enquiries are ever the same. It always keeps things interesting.”
With so many years at Royal Wolf under her belt, asking Amy to narrow down her favourite project seems like an impossible task, however there was one stood out for all the right reasons.
“A few years ago, I worked on a project at Westmead Hospital for Hansen Yuncken, where we created a linkway from the private hospital to the children’s hospital,” says Amy. “At the time, they were constructing a new hospital and needed a safe and easy way to navigate and move between hospitals. It was erected six metres above the ground and was 100 metres long. Once the fit-out was done, you wouldn’t have been able to tell you were walking through shipping containers – the interior looked exactly like a hospital walkway.
“I love the modifications area of the business and love complex jobs. Working on that project made me realise this is what I want to do – I want to travel to sites and take on these challenges.”
When it comes to being a woman working in a male-dominated industry, Amy is refreshingly honest and speaks of her personal experience.
“I think being a woman in this industry can come with some challenges,” she says. “Sometimes, there is a misconception that, as a female, we might not know what we’re talking about as well as a male colleague.
“Occasionally, at the start of a project when we walk onto a job site, it can take a little longer to develop trust with the customer. We have to be confident in the training we’ve had and prove we know what we’re talking about in terms of our product.”
Should women be deterred from working in the logistics industry? Absolutely not. If you’re a woman looking to give it a try, Amy has some simple yet comforting advice:
“Be confident. It can be daunting and challenging when you’re entering into the unknown, but be confident. When it comes to learning the products, you’ll do that over time.”