Business coach and eMentor Roger Thomas, talks about his time at University and where his career has taken him including over 20 years at IBM. Name Roger Thomas Degree Course BSc Mathematics Year of Graduation 1969 Your time at the University Image I chose the University of Edinburgh because I could take outside courses from across the Colleges, hardly any universities offered this back in the 1960s. My degree was in mathematics but I was able to study Astronomy (which was one ancillary subject I was particularly interested in and still am) History of Science, Computer Science, and Pure & Applied Maths. Non- academically I found time to captain the Edinburgh University Table Tennis Club (EUTTC) and the Scottish Universities, now part of Scottish Student Sport (SSS), Table Tennis team. I had visited Edinburgh once before and really liked what I had seen of the city. Another incentive was that it was 250 miles from my hometown, and hence I would have to make new friends and begin a new lifestyle. Training people is something I find incredibly rewarding so when I heard about the eMentoring program, a partnership between the Careers Service and Development & Alumni that gives students and graduates help in career development, I signed up! Roger Thomas Tell us about your Experiences since leaving the University Since leaving, I have done quite a lot because there has been plenty of time since I graduated. Firstly, I got married – we still are 47 years later, with two children and three grandchildren. When I graduated, I worked for IBM in Edinburgh and London in Sales and eventually management. That had originated partly as a result of two year's computer science as part of my degree. That employment lasted for 24 years and included responsibility for IBM's major customers in finance and government. I then worked for myself in management consulting for a couple of years until I was recruited as sales manager for the then newly formed telephone company ScottishTelecom. When ScottishTelecom acquired a mobile phone company, I became the general manager. That was quite an "interesting" time; we negotiated a complex joint venture with an English company, we bought a chain of retail stores and we grew the business very rapidly to become a £50m and 320 people company. Then it was sold off to Vodafone, and I was redundant. This important life change gave me the chance to think, "What am I any good at, and what do I enjoy - and do these overlap?" So, with a couple of like-minded contacts, I set up a company &Coaching that provides management training to businesses and school pupils. Training people is something I find incredibly rewarding so when I heard about the eMentoring program, a partnership between the Careers Service and Development & Alumni that gives students and graduates help in career development, I signed up! Alumni wisdom People do what they think is right; no matter how wrong you may see it, recognise that no-one does what they think is the wrong thing at the time. Related links &Coaching Scottish Student Sport (SSS) Edinburgh University Table Tennis Club The School of Mathematics This article was published on 2024-10-28