Kim Challis

Managing Director

G4S Utility Services, United Kingdom

Finding the right career is not always easy. But Kim Challis is the perfect example of how an individual with a willingness to learn and a determination to succeed can recover from making a wrong turn or two.

Her plan was to become a doctor. But after just a few months as a medical student at Liverpool University, she realised it was not for her.

Today, as managing director of G4S Utility Services, a company that provides a service to electricity, gas and water suppliers by reading meters in millions of UK homes, and which recently started installing smart meters, Kim can look back with some amusement at that false start.

Even so, her route to top management went via Reading University where she achieved a First Class Honours Degree in Electronics and Mechanical Engineering in 1993. That was followed by jobs in pure engineering before ceasing to be a "techie" and moving into product engineering. One of those roles was with a company that was part of what became G4S, where she was encouraged to broaden her skills and has been rewarded with the opportunity to run her own company.

Kim Challis' career path demonstrates to us that a few wrong turnings along the way can still have a happy and successful outcome, and that for those with the right skills it isn't always necessary to follow a conventional route to reach the top in a company like G4S.

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