Women in Engineering
Sulo Shanmuganathan, Technical Director, Holmes Consulting LP, New Zealand. Why do you do what you do and do you enjoy it? As a Technical Director at Holmes, I do many things ranging from meeting with our customers and understanding their priorities for solving infrastructure challenges, to helping colleagues develop technical solutions for some of these challenging infrastructure problems. In between the two, I do a lot of tasks to deliver our projects effectively and efficiently. What I do might be a small contribution towards improving our living standards and enhancing the infrastructure that would serve for present and future generations. Of course, I enjoy every single bit of my work otherwise I would not be doing what I do for the last 30 years. When I began my career in engineering the big and challenging projects lured me. As I grew older and became a bit wiser, I realised that even a small contribution has a huge impact collectively. I started to appreciate the human values and team dynamics to achieve the best for the project and ultimately for communities to which the infrastructure serves. The job I do now is more about how we can work collectively with other disciplines and professionals to bring about enhancements to our existing infrastructure and improving living standards. Greatest challenges? Personally, I like to convert my challenges into great opportunities for learning and growth. I was born in Sri Lanka and spent the first 25 years on the beautiful island of the Indian Ocean. So, when I first went to “Bonnie” Scotland, the biggest challenge was the communications with the Scots, who have big hearts, warmth, and great hospitality. It did not take long to settle down and learn Scottish (I mean English). Jokes aside, living in a foreign country can be […]