Joining Rolls-Royce as an undergraduate trainee, I undertook a sponsored Mechanical Engineering degree at Imperial College London and structured training before working in Development Engineering gaining experience of both development & in-service issues on a number of military engines. A joint masters course in Gas Turbine Technology & Aerospace Management at Cranfield and Warwick Universities followed, before broadening experience in Performance and Controls after which I joined the Corporate Technical Audit team which gave a broad view of Systems & Performance responsible of all function design issues. I became head of System Design - Defence responsible for all design and analysis in 2013.