Geography’s emphasis on seeing connections between differing aspects of society is a highly prized skill for those with careers in and around the halls of power
Patrick Rickles, Head of Business Intelligence and Spatial Data Science
HM Courts and Tribunal Services
Degree: MSc Geographic Information Science, UCL
I was curious about the public sector and how I might be able to apply my skills and knowledge to positively impact policies and decision making. I am currently at HM Courts and Tribunals Service (an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Justice), leading teams on data visualisation, solutions architecture and spatial analyses, such as travel time calculations. The main part of my role is to manage a team and more widely promote best practice in data visualisation and incorporate GIS to enrich outputs. I am actively building the organisation’s geospatial data capabilities and repositories, training people across the Ministry of Justice and acting as the department’s representative for Esri, Ordnance Survey and Microsoft.
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Cengizhan Sehir, Global Trade Programme Manager for Americas and Turkey
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Degree: Geography and Economics, Aberystwyth
I lead on regional activities for the Global Trade Programme in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The programme’s primary objective is to utilise economic diplomacy to promote global prosperity, growth and gender impacts whilst alleviating poverty in our partner countries. I lead on these developments within the Americas geographical region as well as with Turkey.
Geography is part and parcel of working at the FCO. Having an understanding of the world is what our job is all about, both the human and physical side of things. Having a wide variety of skills and knowledge that geography develops as well as just being able to operate with different people.
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