Continuous growth, steady improvement, and productive collaboration: that's what the Corporate Improvements & Projects department at RWE Supply & Trading (RWEST), headed by Tobias Gillen, is all about. In this interview, Feixia Li, project manager in the team, gives an insight into the daily business of the department and reveals that she works with the smartest colleagues in the world.
What is the function of the Corporate Improvements & Projects team within RWEST?
Our focus is on continuous improvement of the organization, and we support growth initiatives and projects launched by the RWEST Board, commercial sponsors, functional departments, and Corporate Affairs itself.
We are a dedicated team for facilitating change, reducing operational risks, fostering and improving business efficiency and collaboration. In addition, we support and accelerate RWEST’s expansion in new international and domestic markets. Specifically, we manage both commercial and non-commercial projects, actively improve processes to ensure excellency and thus help RWEST succeed.
What does your daily business consist of and what does a typical working day look like for you?
In the broadest sense, as a project manager I am responsible for planning, organizing and managing the completion of specific projects. I ensure that projects are completed on time, on budget and within the planned scope. My exact duties always depend on the type of projects I am overseeing or supporting. But across the board my tasks are best summarised by the "project life cycle", which consists of five phases (or processes): 1. initiation, 2. planning, 3. execution, 4. monitoring and control, as well as 5. closure.
Once the project is properly initiated and well planned, my daily work is to execute the project and make sure it stays on track. I accomplish this, for example, by conducting or supporting regular meetings, through regular project reports to the project steering committee and by communicating with all project parties. A particularly important part of my daily work is managing project risks. For example, 3,000 euros were saved in the IFR/D (Investment Firm Regulation/Directive) project budget. We managed to do this by identifying and managing risks at an early stage.
What other departments do you work with?
The great thing about working as a project manager is that I have the opportunity to work with many different departments across RWEST as well as other RWE OpCos. For example, in the Best in Class+ project (BiC+) I worked with five workstreams led by Sales Portfolio Management, Applied Structuring, Fundamental Hedging, Planning and Business Engineering. In the IFR/D (Investment Firm Regulation/Directive) compliance project I worked with the RWEST Credit Risk Control department and RWE AG Finance & Credit Risk, Banking & Regulation, and Procurement departments.
Is there an exciting project you can give us an insight into?
I do not differentiate between my projects and always aim to think ahead for my stakeholders and provide them with my best, exceed-expectation support. Therefore, all my projects are equally exciting.
Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that an important milestone of the RWEST strategic project 20NEXTwas recently reached – BiC+, the enabler under pillar “Thrive in future green power”, was successfully concluded. With BiC+, we implemented and integrated an IT system landscape and developed a best-in-class process to manage renewable assets in RWEST, which now enable us to implement the marketing of renewable energies in the best possible way with scalable solutions, be it via direct marketing or PPAs. 30 colleagues were heavily involved in this project and almost 2,000 MW of renewables were implemented, covering five markets. This includes, for example, the 10-year contract with ASML, the world's leading manufacturer of chip-making equipment. BiC+’s success plays an important role in achieving RWE’s mission “Growing Green”.
What do you like most about your job and working in your team?
I can work with the smartest colleagues in the world, learn from them every day and so improve myself every day. At this point, I would like to quote a Chinese ancient poem: “Self-development is like sailing against the current; either you keep forging ahead or you keep falling behind”. This quote describes both my mindset and the work of my department very well. Nothing scares me more than knowing that I am not developing and wasting my life, so to say. It is important to strive for the best every day.
