A British champion, a regional director working part-time, and a strong believer in beautiful deviations. Meet Tracey.

Tracey has a confession. She’s always been good at telling other people it’s fine to fail but historically, she hasn’t always been great at taking her own advice.

So she joined a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym. In her forties.

“My reason for starting was actually to help me improve my failure mindset,” she says.

“The universe decided to align, an MMA gym opened up in my village and I haven’t looked back since.”

She’s now a 2025 NoGi British Champion. Not bad for someone working on their relationship with failure.

The work behind the shiny deliverable

Tracey is a Regional Director in Complex Projects, based in Bristol. She’s the Senior Technical Leader for the Transformation Pillar in Programme Advisory, leading services including business and people change, benefits management, programme sponsorship, and stakeholder engagement.

Her work is the stuff you don’t see.

“It’s not about the shiny deliverable at the end that everyone parades around to demonstrate success. My work is the often hidden enabling work that helps people and businesses create and deliver that shiny deliverable to the best of their ability.”

That means equipping people for change and helping them understand why something is shifting, making sure capabilities have genuinely been developed, and aligning all the pieces to go live at the same time. The test of success isn’t just whether the new product launched. It’s whether the client owned that change themselves, with Tracey’s team working quietly in the background.

“A PowerPoint slide or training session does not mean people are able to use or implement something,” she adds.
 

From “just a job” to building a practice from scratch

Tracey has been with AtkinsRéalis for eleven years. She didn’t plan on staying.

“I initially joined in a Team Leader role upon returning from living abroad and was just looking for a job. However, that job very quickly turned into a career.”

She spotted a gap, set up a new team focused on business excellence and improvement, and it became foundational to how the practice operates. But the moment she’s proudest of came later, when she and a couple of colleagues petitioned leadership to create an entirely new practice.

“We were challenged well, we had to demonstrate the benefits, understand how it could work operationally, and be cognisant of the potential risks. But after a few iterations, the business gave us the chance.”

That practice, Programme Advisory, has grown from eight people to around fifty. “Having the freedom, support, and safety to be given that opportunity was a brilliant experience.”
 

Part-time doesn’t mean part-ambition

What makes Tracey’s story particularly striking is that she’s done all of it while working part-time.

“Every role that I’ve interviewed for, either with clients or at AtkinsRéalis, has never been specifically advertised as part-time. Many were actually full-time. But the business has been flexible in its thinking and seen how the quality of who I am and the results I can achieve outweigh the need to be present five days a week.”

She credits her colleagues for making it real. “I’m able to have this flexibility because I’m surrounded by talented individuals who can step up in my absence and offer me true collaboration, working together to solve problems and challenging each other to keep learning.”

She hopes it sets an example. “Being part-time doesn’t have to mean your career stops growing.”

“Deviations can lead to beautiful locations”

Ask Tracey what International Women’s Day means to her and she’ll tell you it’s about defiance.

“I’m a woman working in a still heavily male-dominated industry, I work part-time, I fit the traditional stereotype of the primary caregiver at home but I compete in an incredibly male-dominated sport, often the only woman on the mats, and I’ve had a successful career in spite of these barriers.”

Her advice is characteristically direct. “Just start. None of the things that have helped me along the way would have happened if I hadn’t just put a foot forwards and given things a go.” 

And her biggest career lesson? Don’t be too rigid about where you’re headed.

“Deviations can lead to beautiful locations. I never anticipated having a career in change and transformation, it was the result of a project secondment that opened my eyes to the possibility and joy it brings me.”
 

Ask Tracey who inspires her at AtkinsRéalis and the answer comes quickly.

“Jackie holds a fond place in my heart, you heard it here first, Jackie!”

Jackie came into the industry when it was genuinely unheard of for women to be in engineering and construction. “Her technical knowledge is amazing, she is so astute and a keen intellectual, and balances this perfectly with the joy that Jackie holds for life.”

But it’s something deeper that stays with Tracey. “How comfortable and confident Jackie is with who she is. She knows her mind, her ethics. She is grounded yet exuberant and someone who never fails to make me want to try harder and be comfortable with who I am.”

Her parting thought: “Surround yourself with people who will inspire and challenge you. Most of my growth hasn’t come from textbooks. It’s come from positive conflict with colleagues and peers. No one person holds all the answers, it’s only as a collective that we really get the bigger picture right.”

Inspired by Tracey’s journey? Explore how you can shape transformation and complex project delivery with us.