Reading an article by another alumni it struck me that I might be able to contribute something about working overseas and also that there are many possible paths in a career.

I joined the Cheltenham Grammar School in the 3rd year (now called Year 10) in 1966, my family having moved from Sussex. I was not a particularly high-flying scholar although I had always found Maths easy and took my GCE a year early along with a few other boys. I had also been able to draw from a young age and actually won the Art prize in my previous school the year that I moved. I had always been fascinated by maps and thoroughly enjoyed Geography. These interests largely determined the A levels I would take, and subsequently my career.

Some of my fondest memories of the school are the time spent in the Art room with my fellow A-level Art students under the mentorship of the marvellous Art master Eric Ford, and Geography field trips with two young and energetic Geography teachers Mr Furley and Mr Brown. These reinforced my enjoyment of Art and Design, and all things geographic.

In the Sixth Form, Eric Ford gave us a lot of career advice. I was torn between Architecture and Urban Planning, and in the end opted for Planning as it seemed to offer a wider scope than Architecture. In those days there were only half a dozen universities offering Urban Planning and I ended up at Aston University in Birmingham. This one was a four year course rather than the others that were all five years that included a year out to work in a planning office. The year out was something of a lottery as students had reported a variety of experiences, so I was not sorry to miss that.

When I was at university I knew I wanted to work overseas.  I had heard about Voluntary Service Overseas, and I applied in my final year. I was accepted and was sent to Nigeria. I was the only qualified planner in an area the size of Wales, and it was a fantastic confidence-building experience. As well as my day-to-day responsibilities of managing a small planning team, I was involved in the selection of the location for the new national capital city, Abuja.

On return to the UK, I thought I should get some grounding in local authority work as that was where most planners worked at that time. But at every interview my VSO work was seen as irrelevant - be aware that overseas experience does not always help in the UK job market. After these rejections I spent several days knocking on doors (literally) of consultancy firms in London. Without exception they valued my VSO work and also recognised my initiative in visiting them personally. I was offered a job with one of the big multi-disciplinary firms (architects, planners, engineers). They put me on a national transport planning project and sent me to be based in Preston in Lancashire. There were several consultancy firms on the project and this exposed me to the breadth of consultancy work. However, I still felt that I should get some local government work under my belt and after two years in Preston I landed a job in the London Borough of Merton. It was good to see the planning system in operation from the inside, but I realised that my skills were better suited to projects rather than procedures.

In 1980 I saw an advertisement for town planners in Hong Kong, and a few months later I was in Hong Kong working on the design of one of their six new towns. These were exciting times! I had engineers hovering around my drawing board waiting to go and start building my housing schemes. I was there for three years and by the time I left there were about 60,000 people living in the zones that I had planned.

Following Hong Kong, I worked with a couple more consultancies, spending time working in Pakistan and Egypt. Then in 1994 I went freelance and have been an independent consultant ever since. I have worked in around 20 countries, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region. Initially my work and outputs were primarily urban and regional planning including some conservation planning, but later my project experience allowed me to undertake a wider variety of roles. Working on a wide range of projects I acquired knowledge in environmental aspects, institutional issues, social issues, and a broad understanding of infrastructure engineering. I also got to understand the whole project process from identification, through feasibility, design and implementation.

An important part of this was learning how to be a good consultant. A brilliant expert does not necessarily make a good consultant, particularly for international work. An essential part of a consultant’s job is to listen and understand client objectives and to empathise with local conditions, approaches and needs.

I had my first role as a project leader in 2006 in Tonga. Since then I have been team leader in multi-disciplinary teams or as an individual consultant advising the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other agencies directly. Having established a track record with some companies and ADB, most of my work has come to me rather me having to chase it.

So, in conclusion, my advice for anyone considering an international career is as follows:

Getting started in overseas work – Catch 22

• Most clients (Governments, agencies etc.) want people who have had previous overseas experience. But how do you get that first chance? I did it by doing VSO.
• Some consultant companies will send an inexperienced employee to an oversees project at no expense to the client in order to get the work onto his/her CV.

A Good Consultant

• A very good expert does not always make a good consultant – especially overseas

A good international consultant must:

• Be good at listening
• Be good at communicating e.g. simplifying complex issues
• Be flexible in applying standard practices – they might not fit the local conditions
• Be pragmatic and sometimes accept solutions that are sub-optimal, but still beneficial

Not a Single Path – Many Variations Possible

• It is important to realise that there are many different avenues for your career once you start work
• As explained, I have ended up as a team leader and something of a generalist
• I could have stayed in urban planning or specialised in one aspect

I am currently working in Cambodia where I am consultant team leader on a project for infrastructure improvements in six provincial towns. The project is financed by a loan to the Cambodian Government from the ADB. The project includes sewerage, drainage, landfills, urban planning and institutional capacity building.

With the Provincial Governor talking to the press after ground-breaking ceremony for sewerage scheme in Stung Saen town, Cambodia

Note: Examples of my projects, and some drawings, are available on my website www.richardmabbitt.com