Career Story: Commercial Lifecycle Assurance Manager

What does a day in your shoes feel like? And what are the key skills that can make or break a career in your field?

We’ve asked a diverse group of Apolitical members to share their career story with us and the tips they have for junior public servants. In this article, Lawrence Clack demonstrates the value in having variety in your job role.

What did you do before becoming a commercial lifecycle assurance manager?

Prior to joining DfT (Department for Transport) I was a commercial manager at an asbestos management company and before that I held various positions in the asbestos, housing and pharmaceutical industries.

What does an average day look like for you?

We provide assurance to both DfT & our ALBs of their procurement & commercial activities. This involves reviewing commercial strategies, business cases, programmes & projects to identify good practice & suggestions for improvement. So an average day will start with processing e-mails that will generally contain updates for various projects, supporting documents and policy updates. A huge part of my role is understanding what commercial activities are happening and what are planned so the next part of my day will be taken up with meetings & conversations with colleagues & ALBs. The information we garner here is vital to providing an efficient & effective service and planning our workload. Part of the commercial assurance process is delivering comprehensive reporting of our findings, so the next stage of my day will be capturing our findings and recommendations in a formal report to be delivered to the programmes & projects. An additional element of my role is delivering a secretariat function alongside my team to our Commercial Assurance Board. This means that I may also have minutes to prepare, papers to provide to board members & inbox enquiries to reply to. If it's a good day (which does happen occasionally!) there will still be time left to conduct some personal development such as training and catching-up on policy & regulations updates.

What's the best part of your job?

The variety and opportunity to learn. We are involved with every type of project from major, decades-long, infrastructure schemes, relatively small-scale purchases and through to consultancy provision. This brings a fantastic diversity to my day and my work. It also means I am always learning and need to maintain my own personal development.

What have you done to advance your career or gain a promotion at work?

I have taken every opportunity to learn, develop and build my network. This helps with my skill-stacking and capabilities whilst opening up more promotion & career options.

What advice would you give to future public servants interested in a career in your field?

Take every opportunity you can to get involved with a varied range of commercial projects, from business cases, strategy development to contract management and supplier management. Try to gain an understanding of the whole process, this will help you identify if it's for you and where you might want to specialise. Hopefully it won't put you off!

Want to share your own career story with the Apolitical community? Use this form to let us know about your job.

(Image Credit: Unsplash)