The IET, Director, Membership and Professional Development
Michelle works at the IET as the director of Membership and Professional Development. Having begun her career as an apprentice, she’s worked her way up from microwave design engineering to managing complex military projects for private companies. A past Young Women Engineer of the Year, after around 25 years in industry she then made the jump to working for a professional body.Today Michelle Richmond may be in charge of 120 staff and a P&L of £16m, however, her engineering roots began as a humble apprentice. At 16 she had itchy feet and was determined to leave school and enter the workplace. She appeased her parents request for furthering her education by applying for an apprenticeship.“I applied for two possible apprenticeships, one in banking the other in engineering. It was a practical decision. I come from a family of engineers, both my mother and father had done apprenticeships and so they been through the process and knew that they lead to completely full careers,” she says.Offered the engineering placement first, Richmond began her career on the shop floor, moving around departments to get a feel for the industry. She fell in love with microwave engineering whilst in the microwave test lab and focused on this as her specialism. After finding a passion for this subject matter, she worked towards a degree part-time, taking the graduate route towards becoming a microwave design engineer. This then developed into managerial roles as development manager, then moving on to operations and programme manager positions.