Consultant of the Year

Over the past year, clients have been nominating and providing feedback on their FDM consultants each month in recognition for their outstanding efforts on placement. The Consultant of the Year Award selects one consultant from each FDM region who has truly risen above expectation and shone in their role. Congratulations to 2018’s Consultants of the Year. Let’s hear from this year’s winners…

Matthew Tsang, Data Analyst, Fannie Mae (US)

“I have been with FDM for just over two years I was lucky to be in a large, diverse class in terms of education, background, and life experience. My transition to my first placement at Fannie Mae was great as there was a group of us starting at the same time. It is a supportive working environment where each team member offers a lot of expertise and guidance. My line manager is constantly looking at ways for our team to improve our repertoire of technology as well as expand our exposure to work with business teams across the enterprise. The majority of projects I work on are unique to each other, so it is nice knowing there will always be a variety of work as well as new challenges to tackle.

In recognition of this award, I would like to thank my team and especially my line manager, Wei Wang for seeing FDM consultants not only as temporary contractors, but also as young professionals. He took that as a mentoring opportunity, providing the means for us to learn new technology platforms, pushing us to reach our potential within the business and taking the time to teach us how to handle new challenges.”

Alex Rebull, Data Analyst, China Light Power (HK)  

“While studying Civil Engineering at university, my class struggled trying to manage large sizes of data, that’s when I started developing an interest to what the most efficient way to manage and extract useful information would be and which tools are the most adequate, so I took an immersive Data Science course and then joined FDM on the Java Developer stream. I was placed in CLP as a data analyst. My work in CLP has been really challenging but satisfying; I have had the opportunity to work on various projects and learn a lot from everyone around me. At the same time, I had the chance to enrol onto the Big Data Master at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, so I can continue learning while providing more skills to my actual team.

Winning the Consultant of the Year award is a huge honour for me. I think if someone wants to change their career path and transition into the IT industry, FDM offers one of the best solutions to achieve that objective. I would recommend anyone applying, to be open minded, be ready to learn new concepts, and to not be afraid of challenges.”

Ammar Grewal, Project Manager, Virgin Media (UK)

“I graduated from the University of Lincoln with a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences. Due to the advances in technology, the practical element of the degree had been lost, so I decided to take a Masters in Renewable Energy Systems Engineering with Electrochemistry at the University of Surrey. My masters mainly focused on project-based case studies, and this is where I found my desire to become a project manager.

After completing the Project Support Office stream in the London Academy, I was placed with Virgin Media. I started out as a Project Support Officer in a team of 3 looking after 5 programmes and 32 projects. I joined just in time for the launch of a new 5 year programme which was worth over £15 million a year in Cyber Security, Regulation and Compliance. We are now in year 3 of the programme and my role has grown. I started off by managing finances and reporting, however as the projects have developed I have moved on to on-boarding people, running ISO 27000 project audits and resource management. At the end of 2016, we saw a lot of change as Virgin Media Technology and Transformation merged with Livery Global Technology and Innovation department to solidify their stance as the biggest cable company in the world. I took on extra responsibility, managing over £1m worth of projects, from virtual infrastructure to regulatory strategy change to GDPR projects.

I am really happy to have won Consultant of the Year, I never expected it. It is a testament to my approach of constantly badgering my peers for more responsibility, getting my head down and making tasks my own as well as asking to take on more workload.”

Brandon Fitzgibbon, Technical Systems Analyst, RBC (CA)

“I gained a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Concordia University and briefly pursued a career in steel manufacturing, before falling in love with programming and joining FDM on the Application Support stream in Toronto. My 2 years at FDM have been a positive learning experience, I have met many talented individuals and had the chance to expand my skillset. My first client was PSP where I learned the ropes as a Production Analyst and evolved into a DevOps engineer.

I recently began working as a 3rd year Consultant placed at Royal Bank of Canada as a Systems Analyst on Corporate Technologies. I would recommend FDM to anyone who wants to crack the job market. I’ve yet to see any FDM consultant who hasn’t landed a successful position with a top-tier company! I’m extremely thankful to FDM for jump starting my career in IT.