Roam if you want to
“Fly the great big sky
See the great big sea
Kick through continents
Busting boundaries
Take it hip to hip, rocket through the wilderness…”
This verse from the B-52’s hit song Roam might have been written about Rosie Twogood. As we continue our focus on sharing about some of the women who work with Infosys Portland, I wanted to share Rosie’s story which is a case study of a modern professional woman.
Rosie easily roams around the world, a woman who is sure to pursue her personal interests as passionately as she does professional ones. She is a woman who is finding great satisfaction in the career she is building while keeping her life in balance.
For Infosys Portland, we are lucky to have her, and you’ll see that Rosie’s story is also a heartening affirmation of our firm’s culture….
I love to travel. I also love my work. Fortunately, so far, I have been able to combine my travel and professional interests in a way that satisfies both.
My professional career began in the UK. After finishing university, I worked in marketing and buying roles. Perhaps my favourite role was as a buyer for an outdoor equipment business. I dealt with everything that wasn’t clothing and footwear, and it is a sector that has a hilarious range of items. From tent pegs to tarpaulins, sleeping bags to water bottles, gas burners to sunglasses, I became an expert in all of them.
I loved the variety of it. It was a genuinely end-to-end gig, from ideation of products to logistics, to sales and competitor analysis. I especially enjoyed working directly with factories in Asia as well as the UK. We were making things!
As much as I loved my work I was itching to travel. I wanted to live abroad for a significant amount of time. I also wanted to live at a beach.
Hello Australia and hello Bondi
It has long been considered a rite of passage for many young professionals to leave the UK, make the pilgrimage to Bondi and work in Sydney. Nonetheless, it was a thoroughly unique and exciting adventure for me.
As soon as I landed, I applied to work with Infosys Portland. I wanted a solid permanent position to anchor my life in Australia. My previous experience put me in good stead, they could see I was enthusiastic and ambitious, and I was hired.
The nature of the work built perfectly on my experience in the UK, and I began to thrive once I realised that the firm had a highly supportive culture and that the senior people would readily share their expertise and experience.
I also embraced my new home and soaked up Sydney’s climate and the beaches of my dreams. While Bondi stands alone, I also explored many of the others, including the small and spectacular Tamarama, which the locals call Glamarama, as it is favoured by the city’s models.
Sydney has over 100 beaches along the coast and is within the world’s largest natural harbour. So, when the surf was too big along the coast, I would often head to one of my favourite harbour spots, Milk or Shark Beach. Not as scary as it sounds, as the beach is protected by shark nets. Plus, I’m a shark fan, having swum with sharks several times, and hammerheads are next on my list.
London calling…
After a couple of years in Australia I decided to head home, to London, a city I will always love. I quickly found work in procurement, helping companies develop more effective relationships with their most strategic suppliers leading diagnostic and strategic sourcing activities and developing and delivering category management strategies.
When I heard that Infosys Portland was opening a London office, I was delighted. Even though years had passed, once I reconnected, it felt as if there had been no time apart. I was even more delighted to realise that the London office was infused with the same cultural dynamics that I’d experienced in Sydney.
Infosys Portland employs people from a diverse range of countries. I have always enjoyed the ‘country socials’ the firm holds, where someone organises food and drink from their country, and we have a quiz on that country. The same practice is alive and well in the UK office.
The icing on the cake is that I have the same mentor in the UK office that I had in Sydney. So, it’s no wonder I felt immediately at home.
My career is coming along at a nice pace, but I have not lost the travel itch, and I don’t know that I ever will.
I recently had four and a half months off from December 2022 to April 2023, when I travelled around South and Central America and finished with a week of skiing and touring in Norway.
This most recent travel is further evidence of the firm’s culture. That the leadership team could listen to my request and understand the things that motivate and inspire me.
It is important to me to achieve an equilibrium where my career and personal interests, like travel, are balanced. I’m especially pleased the firm gets that and backs me. It is exactly what the modern workplace should be like.
Ultimately, we spend a lot of high-quality time at work. For me, it is vital that it not only has meaning and purpose but that I have an affinity with my peers. I know I’m lucky to have found those three things. I hope others can too.
No doubt Rosie will continue to roam around the world. We are thrilled to know so many of our people have such a global mindset. The more worldly they are the sharper their perspective is. Now that we are a global firm, we are also thrilled that she has worked in our Sydney office, where Portland was born and the place where our unique culture first developed.
