One of just a handful of students at her all-girls’ college who focussed on maths and sciences, Sarah found herself one of just seven females in a first year surveying class of 200 at Otago University. “I realised pretty quickly that surveying wasn’t for me, and switched direction to maths, finance and economics.”
Her first foray into the energy sector came courtesy of a placement on Transpower’s graduate programme – where she landed the only spot for a non-engineer, and just one of two that went to women in an intake of eight or nine.
“That was pretty indicative of the gender split at the company across the board at the time,” says Sarah.
Tackling the under-representation of women and girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects in education is a cause Sarah is passionate about.
“There just aren’t that many girls who study those subjects. It's not made out to be interesting or useful to them. Meridian does a bunch of work to help encourage girls into trades and engineering, and I would love to expand that further.”
After cutting her teeth in the industry with Transpower as a market analyst, Sarah set off on her OE, spending a winter skiing in Europe before ending up sleeping on a friend’s couch in London.
Her first job came courtesy of an encounter at a music festival in Sardinia.
Kiwi investment services IT start-up FNZ was looking for a business analyst for its London office – and Sarah dived straight into the deep end of financial technology.
When an opportunity came up to help establish FNZ’s Czech office, Sarah jumped at it.
“I'd never even been to Prague, but I figured living in central Europe would be a cool experience and the work would be a new challenge.
“Everything was so accessible. You could jump on a bus and go skiing in Slovakia for the day or pop over to Slovenia or Vienna for the Christmas markets.”
With colleagues from all over Europe and the UK, along with a bunch of Kiwi expats, Sarah’s foray into the IT industry was a great cultural and social experience that would also set her up for her future roles at Meridian.
Upon her return home she landed a job as an energy trading analyst that allowed her to combine her business analysis skills with her analytical experience in the energy industry.
“It was like that role was made for me. My first big focus was figuring out how to integrate three Australian power stations into our operations in New Zealand. I absolutely loved it.”
Sarah then spent a couple of years leading trading strategy as a senior trader and automating trading systems as an ICT delivery owner.
Another hugely positive experience during her time at Meridian has been the way the company approached helping her manage motherhood and her career. She was heavily pregnant when she applied for her current role – but any concerns that might be disqualifying were quickly allayed.
“You know, I was sitting in the interview and I felt like I had to bring it up – even though it was pretty obvious, as I was seven months pregnant at the time!”
She was told: ‘If you're the right person for the job, you're the right person. The rest is just logistics.”
Sarah is once again navigating a period of maternity leave, with her second child due in June.
The flexibility to return to work part-time, work from home, and ramp up her hours when her workload demanded it had made the process less stressful the first time around.
“You have to be realistic about what your role requires, and how you can balance that with your family situation. But if you can figure out a way to make it work, the company really looks after you – so my experience has been great.”
