Mel Payne (J 90-92): POSITIVE ENERGY

Mel started Bradfield at a watershed moment when the College was making inroads into co-education, so what had started with a smattering of girls across the institution became more formalised with the introduction of Palmer House and subsequently Armstrong House. Mel joined the new Armstrong House in their first Lower Sixth cohort. She has a clear memory of her first ever lesson when all the girls sat on one side of the classroom and all the boys on the other and it was all ‘rather awks’ but ultimately the boys and the girls integrated well and Mel enjoyed her time at the College and felt privileged to be a Bradfieldian.

At A-level Mel studied Economics, Geography and German, enjoying all three, but it was the Geography department that shaped her Bradfield experience owing to its collegiate approach. After lessons they would stay together as a class and ‘do lunch’ in Hall together making it a more holistic experience than the purely academic bent of the other two subjects.

Not having a clear idea on a future career at Bradfield Mel received what turned out to be fantastic advice to do something that she enjoyed. Given her positive experience at Bradfield, she chose to read Geography; at A-Level she had been particularly drawn to Human Geography and chose Southampton because, unlike other universities at the time, it allowed students to specialise in this from the second year onwards.

After Southampton Mel still wasn’t sure what direction to pursue so decided to apply for the John Lewis Graduate Management scheme which she knew to be well structured and highly regarded. The scheme gave her an excellent insight into business and people management, with challenges ranging from managing staff on the shop floor to dealing with the sometimes ‘tricky’ customers. After four years in Reading then the flagship Peter Jones store on Sloane Square, she concluded that she didn’t want to remain in retail but appreciated all that she had learned from the experience.

From Rinex, Mel was headhunted by Morgan Stanley. At that time, in the early 2000s, commodities were not such a core area of business for Morgan Stanley, so there was the opportunity to institutionalise the operational framework and help build and expand the commodities group commercially. She spent nearly 12 years there holding various roles including Head of Oil Operations and ultimately COO for Oil (Europe). Post the financial crisis, the oil business was sold to another energy trader, ‘Castleton Commodities’, for whom she went on to set up their London business.

After a few years at Castleton she decided that it was time for a change so took a pause from the high-level operational roles to undertake some study, completing the International Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance with the ICA (International Compliance Association), alongside setting up her own consultancy firm ‘Eve Energy Consulting Limited’. Consultancy at Eve also proved a success and led to an interesting contract as Business Manager/ COO at Shell from which she was head-hunted for her current role as COO of Energy Trading Fund, Roscommon Analytics, a post she has held since 2022.

Mel has undoubtedly been extremely successful in her career to date but she reflects her success has certainly not been a ‘slam dunk’. Mindful that she doesn’t want this narrative to shift towards the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated industry, she would however like to help others navigate the path.

By her mid-thirties Mel had a wealth of experience and was performing well yet could not understand why she wasn’t necessarily being offered the same opportunities as her male counterparts.

Only at this point did she realise the significance of networking and career mentoring. Prior to this, she had assumed her boss would also act as her mentor, not appreciating that there can be little incentive for a boss benefiting from excellent performance to promote subordinates beyond their reach. She also found the attitude towards returning to work after maternity leave in some firms challenging, as if mothers had to pretend they did not have children and hide their family behind an army of childcare to succeed.

Not a lot of good came out of Covid but Mel identifies that whilst businesses are shifting back to a more office-centric culture there is still a willingness to offer flexible working which is a great advantage when trying to meet parenting commitments.