Short: Dan Smith – A Career with Impact
from Planet Beyond
How can you build a career with impact? Dan Smith has a simple rule: ‘Follow your interests—when you look back, it will look like you had a plan’. Dan’s first interest was in cooking, and he started his career as a chef. But when he realised that he would not reach the Michelin-starred heights of that highly competitive field, he turned to a new interest: engineering. He wanted to have a practical impact, so after his undergraduate degree, started by volunteering with Engineers Without Borders in Africa. In his work in Ghana and Uganda, he sought to support local engineers as they brought their skills to their own communities. He looked for more ways he could use his skills impactfully. Qualifying for a masters scholarship, on the basis of his volunteer experience, he turned to the private sector. With Royal HaskoningDHV, and then with Fugro, he developed a career using data to monitor and improve biodiversity around offshore wind farms. Dan sees three main ways to have an impact. One can take a hands-on approach, fixing practical problems—but the scope of this work is often limited to a particular community. Or one can take a role setting impactful policy or corporate strategy—but this work can feel alienated from its outcomes. Dan proposes a middle way that has worked for him: developing specialist skills that can be impactful across projects, as part of a collaborative team. In this episode, he shares how following our interests can help us develop those skills. Host Jon Baston-Pitt Guest Dan Smith, Offshore Wind Biodiversity Solution Owner, Fugro
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