Tell me about yourself and your experience at Nortel?
I lead a team of finance and accounting professionals. We manage the commercial bid process, produce budgets and financial forecasts as well as financial reporting.

What are your career aspirations?
One of the best things about working in Finance at Nortel is role diversity. Since I joined Nortel I've had roles in operations (inventory management), IT systems implementation, customer facing and business management. I look for this continued learning & development to take me to the executive ranks at Nortel.

What is most inspiring in your job?
I'm sure that this is a common answer and might even be considered a clichˇ but, regardless, the people I work with on a day to day basis inspire me the most. Supporting the sales process from beginning (proposal stage) to end (results reporting) gives me the opportunity to work with many groups at Nortel including our customer facing teams, our engineers, product management teams and, of course, very bright people in finance. From an accomplishment perspective, the most exciting part of my job is seeing a commercial opportunity I've worked on turn into a customer success story. Hearing about & seeing how our network solutions impact our customers' businesses is extremely motivational.

Can you describe your relationship with Management?
I'm fortunate to work for a manager who empowers his people to make decisions that affect the success of the organization. Our organizational structure is also very flat. It's not uncommon for the group vice president to go straight to an analyst with questions. This can be very an important motivational element for our financial analysts.

What it is like to work in a global company?
The global nature of the company is one of the reasons why Nortel was so attractive to me and I haven't been disappointed. I've had the opportunity to travel across Canada and the US and even spent two and a half years working in Denver in support of a sales team. There's no question that the knowledge acquired and the relationships I developed during that time will contribute to my success as a manager. Of course, our technology makes it possible for me to reach out to anyone in the world with a simple phone call or an email.

What values are important to succeed at Nortel?
Never losing sight of our customers' networking needs is critical. In my case, all my customers are internal to Nortel so having processes in place that protect the business' interests and deliver quality solutions to our customers is, in my opinion, one of the reasons why we're global leaders.

Do you have any recreation / leisure facilities at your site?
We're pretty lucky in the region. We have access to a gym (you can even practice golf), to aerobics and other classes. We have 3 instructors on site pretty much all the time (one of them even comes by our work area once a week for a stretch break!). In the summer, the fitness staff organize softball and beach volleyball leagues and we have basketball nets set up in the parking lot. In the winter, we organize hockey games with other departments and Chief Technology Officer, puts on the CTO hockey cup.

What would you say to someone who would consider joining Nortel?
Choosing the right company, one that matches your expectations and your career ambitions is an important decision. Even with all that has happened in the last 3 years in the networking industry, I can't find a reason to doubt the decision I made 7 years ago. Nortel has given me the opportunity to develop as a person, as a manager and as a leader. I've met some truly remarkable individuals and been through some great experiences. Best of all, though, is that I know that the future will be just as rewarding and exciting.