International Womens Day

To celebrate International Womens Day we decided to find out more about a few of the women that help make OCL the succesful business it is today.

Claire Ansbridge – Head of Accounts

Claire has successfully worked her way up to ACCA Membership after starting her career at 17 as an accounts clerk for a global manufacturing company… “I worked there for 9 years and got the opportunity to step up when the management accountant went on maternity leave, email became a thing and I was heavily involved in the implementation of a full ERP system on the site I worked at”.  Claire managed to balance building her career with starting a family when she had her son in 1995 and returning to work after just 5 months maternity leave. Since joining the OCL family she has been an asset to the company and a joy to work with. Claire’s role is office based but does require her to spend some time out on site which she enjoys.

Katherine Neilson – Design/ Document Controller

Kat graduated from the University of Essex in 2009, She started her first full time position as a planning and dispatcher for a maintenance company before moving into a variety of administrative roles. She joined OCL in 2017 in her current role and is also one of our office first aiders and fire marshals as well as providing support to many areas of the business.

Rebecca Harris – Health and Safety

Rebecca joined OCL in 2006 straight from school as an office administrator, during her time at OCL she has fulfilled various roles including procurement, Quality Assurance, before moving into her current role. She has achieved the NEBOSH construction Certificate and is working towards obtaining the NEBOSH International Diploma. Rebecca role requires her to spend time on site as well as in the office which is an aspect she enjoys.

Anita Kanhai – Senior Estimator

Anita has worked in the construction industry since she left school in 1982 after being pushed towards a career in Estimating after her excellent grades in Maths made her stand out, Anita fondly recalls the early days of her career “My mentor was often seen with a dictaphone in one hand and endless cups of coffee in the other, as well as the sounds of tannoy announcements regularly bouncing around the large office space, old fashioned switchboards were used to answer the phones and A1 drawings where produced by Printing A1 drawings from tracing paper in a bath of ammonia through a roller and hanging them out to dry! Needless to say we have come along way since those days.

This is a time when women on site were a rarity and Anita recalls having to work extra hard to earn the respect of her male peers.

Fast forward to 2019 and women on construction sites are much more commonplace, although it is fair to say that as an industry we still fall far behind in this regard, Anita thinks this is in part down to the way the industry is percieved Quoting her 21 year old daughter “ Mum working in construction means brick laying?”.

Lets squash that myth and tell the next generation about the various career opportunities in this industry. #TellusyourStory

back to posts