Laura Thorpe
1. Why did you choose this industry for a career?
Without wishing to sound clichéd, I have always wanted a job where I feel like I’m making a difference. I enjoy this aspect of the job and knowing that the findings from the work will have a positive impact on places.
2. What is your main area of work?
As a research consultant you get exposed to all strands of company work. My time is split mostly between Learning & Skills and Policy & Economics project work, doing a wide range of qualitative and quantitative tasks. I’ve also got spatial analysis and GIS skills having studied Geography at university. It’s not all about colouring in!
3. What do you like most about your job?
I enjoy the variety of projects and tasks that the job involves. No two days are the same. I’ve worked on projects related to young people in jobs without training, economic resilience, enterprise education in schools and women’s business networks.
4. What is the best example of an economic project you have seen recently?
I recently worked on a project that built on the company’s economic resilience and recession work looking at the potential impact of large firm redundancies on market towns in the West Midlands. The project involved compiling an index using several data sets that explain or measure the susceptibility of local, market town economies to the downturn. I did a lot of the mapping and spatial analysis for this project.
5. Where is your favourite place in the world you have visited?
I spent a summer volunteering at an Israeli sea turtle rescue centre. We helped looked after the injured turtles at the centre and camped out on the beach at night monitoring the nests to get a better idea of the population. We had to count them as they hatched, a difficult job but the spectacle and scenery more than made up for it!
6. What are you currently working on?
This week I am spending most of my time on an evaluation of Young Enterprise East Midlands. The charity aims to establish an entrepreneurial culture amongst young people in the East Midlands from an early age and brings business volunteers into the classroom to assist young people in setting up their own company.
7. What is the best experience that working in consultancy has given you?
Working in consultancy quickly builds your confidence and skills. I was particularly pleased with the West Midlands economic resilience work, we produced some interesting and influential findings.
8. What is your most prized possession?
I’ve got a big silkscreen print of a cityscape, which used to be part of the Sheffield Gallery’s collection. It’s really beautiful.
9. What is your favourite quote?
And in the end, its not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
Abraham Lincoln
Sheffield