Our wonderful team are our greatest asset. Not only experts in transport, engineering and placemaking but also committed to delivering better places for people through high-level-service client experiences.
We’re very proud to continue to celebrate the faces behind the fast-growing international consultancy that we are today in our monthly feature ‘PJA People’.
Next up in our series is Assistant Bid Manager, Anita Devlin, based in our Birmingham office:
Tell us what you do at PJA
I am part of PJA’s new Bid Team – assisting Bid Managers, Kevin and Emma and the wider PJA company to manage, prepare, design, format and submit compliant bids. As a qualified and experienced Graphic Designer, I add value to bid submissions by working closely with the technical team to covert textural content into quick-capture, informative, eye-catching diagrams, expertly laid-out documents, highlighted key messages, branded cover and fly-sheet designs and formatting of bid content.
What’s your career path so far?
Prior to PJA I had my own Graphic Design business for seven years, working for private and public sector transport (mainly rail) companies. I worked as part of their rail franchise bid production team, managing the design, document templates and formatting, diagrams and infographics, print and delivery of the full suite of custom branded tender documents. Between the rail franchise bids I worked for a variety of transport companies (Siemens, Crossrail, Transport Systems Catapult, etc.) providing print/digital graphic design expertise for internal and external corporate communications.
Prior to that I worked for 11 years as Senior Graphic Designer in Halcrow’s Corporate Communications Team (internal and external communications and fee earning project work). During this time, I completed my BA (Hons) in Graphic Design plus various professional certified courses.
There has been a wide gap between running my own business and PJA where I focussed on my family, since my twins were born four months premature at 23 weeks at under 500gms each. They are now nine!
What do you enjoy when you’re not working?
The great outdoors and exercise/movement! I run as often as I can (road and trail) and am currently training for the Swansea half-marathon in June. I NEED fresh air, daylight and movement in my life for physical and mental well-being. As a family, we love camping and have a T6 pop-up which we take to the Gower in Wales which is our home-from-home since our twins were born in Swansea. Other than that, family life takes up my ‘spare’ time.
Are you a dog or cat person?
No question about it, a dog – called Soda.
What are you currently reading or listening to?
‘Raising kids with big baffling behaviors’ – I’ve found this book so enlightening with regards to positively supporting children to learn how to regulate their nervous system at times of dysregulation. The book is as much about parenting as it is about the child so very useful.
My instant go-to for happy vibes is Xavier Rudd, an Australian musician, activist and surfer.
I also love watching ‘Ben Fogle: New lives in the wild’ and ‘Surgeons: at the edge of life’ – not that I get much time to watch TV!
Claim to fame?
I share a birthday with Jesus.
Anita Devlin, Assistant Bid Manager
With 20 years of experience in bidding and graphic design, Anita plays an essential role in assisting with bid process management and compliancy, creating bid identities, infographics and diagrams. She leverages her graphic design expertise and extensive experience to help deliver proposals that are not only high-quality but also stand out in the competitive marketplace.
Get in touch with James: [email protected]
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