#freelanceprofile

Freelancer Profile : Tony Papworth

Posted on February 23, 2021

“ Global banks have a preferred list of suppliers. There's no way you can just go direct to any of these large corporations. So working through CometConnet made it all possible. The onboarding process is really good. The platform allowed me to do the contractual stuff easily. But more than just setting up the job, I really felt supported by Comet throughout the whole process..”

Technologies and skills:

Originally from the UK, his career is currently based in Paris, with French banking giant BNP Paribas. He got into IT right out of school, working on the mainframe of oil company Texaco Knightsbridge in London, back in the 90s, following a graduate degree. Yet his worldly wanderings are in no way limited to Europe, intermittently working and traveling, Tony spent time in the US west coast, Sydney Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, South America and Brazil. Globetrotting Tony jokes that it was ironically when he settled into a “real career” working for a small solutions company called Metry, that he was able to travel to all the places he had once put himself in kind of hefty debt to get to. Yet beyond travel, it was in this consultancy type of role that Tony found the lifestyle he had been looking: for traveling, going to different places, meeting different people. A lifestyle he has since been able to expand over the last four years as a Comet freelancer. Thanks to the CometConnet administrative portage solution.

« The Comet way of working is really suited to the way I like to work. It’s mostly what I’ve done in my career, moving a lot, evolving a lot. I’ve been a manager for 4-5 years, I’ve also done some more heavy technical work and with time I’ve moved into more IT architecture. I've been very fortunate, actually because it’s all really very diverse! So it was a lot of fun and I’m thankful to be where I am now. »

On being freelance

« I like the feeling of independence, I like potentially being in control of as much as possible of what is around me. I was very lucky and I had a lot of friends who were already freelance so it wasn't as if I was going into it blind. I have planned for it so I kind of do my homework. I was surrounded by people that I liked and trusted a lot anyway. I was already part of a very good source of professionals and social networking people, but I mostly enjoyed the independence feeling of it as the lifestyle coming with: professionally and personally. »

On keeping competitive

« I change my working environment quite a lot so I find it really educational when you're working in so many different places, with so many different people. This has made me stronger in the roles I do. The fact that my roles have been so multifaceted. When you have a wide variety of experience in different places in terms of location or just different industries you are constantly confronted with different sets of challenges: I’ve worked in banking, energy, telecoms. When you move around geographically you have cultural differences where you work. I would never have been able to bring so much if I had been in the same place for all that time! Being freelance offers a real variation and richness. »

Continuous upskilling

« I’m very close with a lot of ex colleagues. And although we've kind of gone off to different places we are still in talk a lot and share information.I do a lot of reading just to see what's happening in the market. I am also doing some self certification and training. This study after working hours keeps me up to date and it’s really interesting. Also with a group of ex colleagues, we have an association called CartaLogic. Essentially, it gives us a public facing market presence. It's really just a group of friends helping each other out, like for getting one of our friends a new contract. We all have different strengths and as a whole, we’re way stronger. It’s very much like an informal boys club and we're all good friends! We talk about ideas we might want to go forward with, not individually but collectively. »

BNP Paribas CIB

BMC Discovery Architect

Freelance

10.2019 - present

17 months +

Mission :

To ensure the global production environment is always fully operational and to improve its functionality, performance and data quality.

Challenges:

Everywhere I've worked with global organisations. I think one of the main challenges is cross-cultural differences, how people work together. In Europe we interface with people in North America and South America and all the way across the Indian subcontinent all the way across Singapore. We have a large presence in Singapore. One of the challenges is it kind of understanding the different working cultures.

Solutions :

I think we've been largely successful really just through engaging with people as much as possible. And actually learning about people in different working cultures. We have got to know people on a personal level, and how different people work. So we overcame a lot of those initial challenges just by getting to know people. And trying to make it more than just work. Developing relationships are really key when you're dealing with people from different parts of the world because you can get to know them as individuals and not just as a group of people that have been really quite positive.

Impact :

We have drastically improved the organisation of the global platform. The availability of it is much better now. I think the data quality and standards we put in place are much better. We established a proper ownership model of that global platform which really works for us now. There are benefits that this allows us to focus on creating proper standards for everything. So data standards, architectural standards, operational standards, service management standards. So a whole lot of things that I think are really key things.

« When I transitioned from the UK to France I was on my own. I had a lot of questions, I had a UK business account in pounds sterling, in a situation where I had a French based mission, which pays in euros. My Comet account manager really helped me when I had questions around things like insurance, invoicing and even opening bank accounts. So being with Comet really helps, it made everything a lot quicker and easier than I had imagined.»