Rising Star: How to use your smarts to fly high (and fight sexism along the way)

Emma Regulski faced discrimination in the oil sector, but tells Charles Orton-Jones how she turned the experience into a positive and is now excelling in consultancy.

Emma Regulski adores being a project manager. In her spare time she visits schools as a STEM spokesperson and is an APM ambassador. Her career path is stellar, and in 2019, she became Young Professional of the Year at management consultancy Faithful + Gould, where she works as a programme manager in construction. So it’s troubling that during our interview she breaks off from her career highlights to flag up a lowlight.  

Left out at sea 

“I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear that I have professionally experienced bias because of my age and gender, something I imagine many readers can relate to,” says Regulski. “I have routinely been underestimated and have had to outperform my male counterparts to even be seated at the same table as them.”

Workplace interactions were sometimes marred by sexist comments. “The perception of my age and gender is still a big thing,” she says, furious. “People have made a judgement based on my appearance, that I’m female and youngish. It’s dismissive of someone’s talent to take physical appearance as what defines them. I’ve had people unexpectedly make inappropriate comments in interviews, meetings, in one-to-ones – or just passively. I have been left speechless when I have been asked about my relationship status or my age in interviews, and received playful comments about fulfilling a secretarial position when in fact I was the only member of my project team with a technical qualification.”

At the start of her career, she worked in the oil industry. “It’s quite polarised in terms of diversity and gender,” says Regulski. “For a period while I was offshore on a project there were 214 men and one other woman. If I ask you to picture a typical offshore worker, you will not picture a 26-year-old female. In industries like oil and gas, and to an extent construction, I was not the norm, and this impacted my progression. Even at a basic level, company-branded offshore PPE coveralls came in male sizing only.”

It’s an uncomfortable reminder that the oil industry (and project management within this world) still suffers from such sexist attitudes. A report by APM in 2018 titled Where are the women in major project leadership? observed: “Women continue to be largely absent from leadership roles in major projects, disproportionately so for this sector.” Of 133 government major projects, only 22 per cent of the senior responsible officers were women. The report also noted that sexist stereotypes persist. Women are held to different standards in interviews and are subject to likeability bias, and so face a social penalty for asserting themselves. Conversations around pay frequently disadvantage them too. 

Formulating a smart fightback 

“Treatment like that can stunt your growth and confidence professionally and personally,” says an irrepressible Regulski. Her reaction to the sexist behaviour (once the shock wore off) was twofold. “First, I thought, you know what is better than retaliating? It’s to get your work to speak for you. Professionally, I’ve had a colleague giving me an unpleasant nickname, and had that same person dismiss my work. For more senior management to see my work and recognise its quality, that gets the negative person behind you. They can see what you are capable of.” 

The second was to act as a role model. “I could be jaded and treat other women badly who are coming up behind me. I could say that, since I had to make the tea and do the filing, they have to as well. But I would rather be a leader and an ally who says that was and is unacceptable.” 

She left the oil industry, and the oversized financial rewards on offer, and found a more nurturing environment at Faithful + Gould. Here she’s found an employer who knows how to get the best out of workers. “I got some really big, life-changing projects,” she says. “I’ve worked on big masterplans for universities. For a while I worked on an art gallery feasibility study project, and a sports facility project, which meant I got to learn all about football pitches.” 

Finding an enlightened place to work 

The contrast with her early career experiences is obvious. Faithful + Gould is a strong investor in talent. “They have a great culture,” says Regulski. “Like buddy-up systems. When I joined, I always had a director with me. It’s the best way to learn, while providing the best service to the client.” 

The diversity of projects has accelerated her career. “One of my key areas of advice for young project managers is to experience consultancy. Particularly if you have high aspirations and want a career with growth, then consultancy gives you experience at such a fast rate. Before, I was a little stagnant with my learning. Now I get opportunities to work on private sector projects, public sector, art galleries, schools, office refurbishments and zero-carbon projects. Basically everything. 

“Being a project manager is just so varied. You never get bored. You spend so much of your life at work, why would you do something you didn’t enjoy?” In her view, when you love what you do, you are able to ride out the turbulent patches and enjoy the career. She bristles at the idea of having a career plan. “No, no plan. In interviews they’ll ask where you see yourself in five years’ time. I think that’s a really restrictive mindset. If you are focused on a single goal, then that stops you looking at other opportunities that might fast-track your career elsewhere. I think it’s best to stay open to all sorts of opportunities.” 

Be proactive and learn from every situation 

She instinctively offers advice. In particular, she recommends trying to find a role where it’s possible to be proactive and take control of large projects, rather than getting stuck in a position where the main duty is to respond to issues. “It’s possible to learn anything,” she says. “I’ve come into construction and had to learn how a building goes up, which is completely different to maintaining an oil and gas offshore installation. The difference is that oil and gas is reactive. You can plan to an extent, but generally you are dealing with things as they emerge. It’s like doing DIY on an old house; you start with good intentions but everything you touch makes it worse. In the end I left oil and gas to work in construction, as it’s going to make me a better project manager.” 

Ultimately, she says, it’s possible to learn from any experience. Even sexist comments at work. She reflects: “Having gone through this experience makes me better, I think, at empathising with other people, who come from diverse backgrounds. I came out of it with a proactive response.”

Emma’s tips for a stellar career 

1 Work in a consultancy 

Working in a consultancy gives you exponential career growth. The exposure is just so good, so you’ll be learning as fast as possible. At some point, I imagine I’ll go to the client-side organisation, where it’s more about internal governance, but I’ll always be grateful for what I learned in the consultancy sector.  

2 Stay on top of technical innovations 

There are so many things that can make your life easier. PowerBI is a great innovation. Some of the digital change forms are great as well. There’s a lot you can do with Microsoft Teams, and Flow is fantastic. Because you don’t really want to be manually populating change forms and sending them to other people to work on, when instead you can have a complete flow, where information goes through a system. It’s our job to use technology to make project management more efficient and get rid of admin.  

3 Leadership v management

Understand the difference between the two, and when to deploy them. Before starting a full-time secondment to a client, I worked on various construction projects, which meant I had developed a personal management style that was task oriented and delivery focused. My client team were mostly SMEs, and I quickly learnt to amend my style towards situational leadership. I have since had the opportunity to develop the programme environment, enabling individuals to challenge themselves and perform at their full potential by allowing innovation and blue-sky thinking. Susanne Madsen did a very insightful presentation titled ‘Leadership Skills for Project Professionals’, which I highly recommend (see apm.org.uk).

4 Get good at communicating 

I’ve seen amazing project managers who are highly technically competent lose a positive relationship with a client because they can’t communicate. Once you’ve made that mistake you can’t recover. Good communication is about understanding your client, their needs and being able to break things down with no technical jargon.

5 Find a passion outside of work 

For me, it’s working in a shelter for a dog rescue charity at the weekend. I do home checks and phone interviews for potential fosters and adopters. Also, being a project manager means being good with money. Another charity I worked with brought children over from the Chernobyl disaster area, hosted them for three weeks with a UK family, financed medical care and just gave them a happy experience. When you apply project management to a cause like that, good things happen. I raised £18,000 in a couple of years using my relationship-building skill set.

by Charles Orton-Jones

Education: University of Glasgow, MA in history; Heriot-Watt University, MSc in strategic project management
Career: Oil and gas sector, 2013–2015, 2017–2018; Faithful + Gould, 2018–present, programme manager
Qualifications: CSCS, MSP Practitioner

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU FROM THE summer 2021 ISSUE OF PROJECT JOURNAL, WHICH IS FREE FOR APM MEMBERS.

_{Imgage Credit Mike Wilkinson}