OW Spotlight! Alexandra Carter

Earlier on in the year, we had the pleasure of catching up with OW Alex Carter on her incredible career journey starting at here Westholme, leading all the way to the Houses of Parliament. Staying local and attending the same university as her then boyfriend – now husband and father of their three children, Alexandra finished her degree in Business Administration at UCLAN.

From there, she began a graduate training scheme focusing on procurement in the rail industry. Starting by focusing on refurbishment of train parts, Alex learnt a range of key skills in contract, commercial management, lean, six sigma and quality control. She has since continued to develop these skills in new roles throughout her career progression. This role developed into a more senior one at the international headquarters in Crewe, which in turn led Alex all across Europe, travelling between 27 European warehouses to consolidate spare parts for trains into three central warehouse locations.

After around 400 flights with this role, she decided it was time to venture into a new role, moving away from the rail industry into pharmaceuticals. Here, Alexandra worked as the European Supply Chain Manager, purchasing various commodities involved in pharmaceutical packaging. This brought a new challenge and skillset to her role working in a highly regulated environment, driving performance improvements across the supply chain. Complying with international regulations was particularly important here, given the necessity for material that was effective and safe to use, whilst maintaining low cost and efficient production.

She visited many European factories including paper mills in the Black Forest, Germany and Sweden, aluminum forges, and high-speed, high volume pharmaceutical packing lines. Managing timelines within the production process was key, as storage space was limited, and so orders had to be delivered just in time for use on the production line. A new opportunity in the logistics and supply chain industry arose with CHEP, and Alexandra was in charge of managing multi-million-pound budgets across Europe. This time, cost-optimisation throughout the supply chain was one of the key priorities of her role – using lean techniques and waste reduction across the supply chain to increase efficiency and reduce costs for transport, inspection and repair of of blue wooden storage pallets (you may have seen them in Tesco’s) supplied by CHEP.

After another job filled with travelling overseas every week, Alexandra decided it was time to stop travelling, coincidentally moving to a company focused on travel: Gatwick Airport. More specifically, Alex began her role providing quality assurance and oversight of the construction work as part of the multi-billion Capital Investment Programme. Again, themes from former roles were critical for Alex: contract management, quality control, ensuring regulations and international standards were met and so much more. Deciding to fully immerse herself in wider airport life at Gatwick, Alex also took on a leadership role, dealing with disruptions or crisis situations at the airport. This came with a myriad of responsibilities, from managing resources for stranded and often vulnerable passengers during flight cancellations and delays, to providing 32 sets of burgers and chips to the highest buildings in the airport for snipers based on the roof, hired to remove disturbing drones.

Within the role Alex also contributed to improvements in accessibility for customers, including optimisation of transport support across the airport for passengers with reduced mobility. Once the pandemic began to have its effects across the UK, Alex took this as an opportunity to change. A role in the Houses of Parliament – one she would never have expected years before whilst residing in Lancashire when her career journey began. Here Alex provides audit and assurance expertise to support the multi-billion pound capital programme to refurbish the Palace. It is the world’s most complex refurbishment of a Grade I UNESO world heritage site. Alex has met some fascinating people and organisations at the Houses of Parliament, such as working with the Charter Quality Institute and leading an interview with Lord James Randolph Lindesay-Bethune, 16th Earl of Lindsay for World Quality Week.

She also has fun exploring behind the scenes with many a day spent under the Houses of Parliament, in basements and tunnels, planning the replacement of over 300 miles of cables, and working with the teams to develop the building of a jetty to deliver resources across the Thames to avoid disruption to nearby traffic. One of Alex’s favourite places in the Houses of Parliament is the St Mary’s Undercroft: a stunning, ornate underground chapel. In this chapel, Emmeline Pankhurst a leading Suffragette hid in the broom cupboard overnight to be allowed the right to vote – a pioneering figure in the women’s rights to vote, and something that particularly resonates with Westholme’s history, with its colours and uniforms inspired by the Suffragette movement. Alex remains at the Houses of Parliament, working on new and exciting initiatives each day, whilst visiting the north frequently to visit family and friends.

In her spare time Alex works as the Chair of Governors at a primary school and also sits as a Strategic Board Advisor for a Cyber Security organisation. Looking back, she could never have predicted the career she has had and uses this as example to support her key advice for students: ‘Go into anything with an open mind. Don’t worry if you do not have the skillset for it, as you will learn it on the job. Do something that you love, and if a job you have started isn’t hitting the mark, it is okay to change.’ Thank you to Alex for taking the time to catch up with us, and for her fantastic advice for our students and community. We wish her the best of luck with future career endeavors and cannot wait to hear what she gets up to in the future!