In July 2008, I left Manchester with a laptop, a suitcase, and a one-way ticket to Perth. I’d been working in recruitment for years, supporting
nuclear decommissioning operators, specialist equipment suppliers, safety consultancies, civil design companies, and environmental specialists. The work was good, but I wasn’t feeling challenged. To really push my career forward, I knew I had to go overseas and break into the Oil and Gas/LNG sector.
It was the longest flight I’d ever taken, and I’d never been to Australia before. The day I landed, Perth’s winter was warmer than Manchester’s summer.
That didn’t last long — the cold set in quickly — but the contrast stuck with me.

The bigger shift was cultural. In Manchester, most of my client and candidate relationships were handled by phone or email. Work was spread nationwide, so face-to-face meetings were rare. In Perth, everything centred around
The Terrace. Clients and candidates expected to meet you in person. Relationships weren’t a “nice to have” — they were the currency.
I adapted fast. I said yes to every coffee invite, offered my own, and spent lunches walking up and down The Terrace to bump into clients, contractors, and candidates. Those casual chats turned into real networks.
At the time, I’d been brought over to account-manage a major LNG operator heading toward FID in September. That decision was delayed by more than a year, but the pause gave me time to build something more valuable than a project start date — credibility and trust.
Projects like
Gorgon, Wheatstone, Prelude, and Ichthys became cornerstones of my career. The networks I built in those early Perth years are part of the reason I was later asked to take on Korea, and they’ve shaped every international role since.
Looking back, the most important decision I ever made was simply getting on the plane. My advice to anyone considering the same leap: make the move, embrace the difference. It can be life-altering.
