Christian Irwin

Said the following about Kamaljeet Kaur Marwaha:

“Kamaljeet (Ruby) is our Senior Programme Commercial Manager responsible for a portfolio in excess of £1.5billion covering five routes across the south of the country and two national programmes. Over and above her intense and demanding day job, she has a passion for developing the skills and knowledge of our teams.

Ruby has instigated, developed, led and delivered a programme of Lunch & Learn and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) events for the IP Signalling Southern Team for the past two years. Ruby has delivered approximately 35 sessions attended by more than 400 people across Network Rail.

Ruby is responsible for the entire program from start to finish. She takes time to identify the areas that the teams need training on. She produces the training material, ensuring it is interactive and simple enough so the whole team can engage with the content. The topics that she has covered include:

• Network Rail (NR) Payment Processes. This covered legislation such as The Construction Act and provided an understanding on why we set different payment terms on our Purchase Orders. This has also ensured that we understand the NR Fair Payment Charter and the importance of paying our supply chain in a timely manner which is key for the business.

• NR Corporate Governance covering Commercial & Procurement. This educated the team on our commercial and procurement processes and why it is essential that we follow them. The team now no longer treat the process with contempt because they understand its relevance and importance.

• Tender Questions. This session shone a light on the quality and quantity of tender questions to ensure robust tender submissions.

• Tender Evaluation. Building on the earlier session on Tender Questions, this session covered the importance of consistent and even handed tender evaluation. It was reiterated that it is important to take comprehensive notes during the evaluation process. Also, the direction that we should always be comparing answers against the tender question and not to compare against the suppliers answers.

• NR Forms of Contracts. This session provided us with the knowledge and understanding of the various forms of NR Contracts and the importance of choosing the right contract.

• PRISM tool. This session covered the tool NR use post contract award to evaluate supplier/NR performance. Since this session the project teams have embraced the tool making it work to deliver contracts successfully.

Various other CPD sessions e.g. writing best practice governance papers, contract requirements and claims have been delivered by Ruby with input from specialists in the areas. One recent interesting one was on forensic schedule analysis. Some of the material that Ruby has produced has now been adopted by other parts of the business and taken on as best practice by Network Rail’s head of Commercial Profession.

These sessions have not only been designed for commercial staff within her team, but they have been offered to staff of all disciplines and in other parts of the Network Rail business.

Ruby has delivered approximately 35 sessions attended by more than 400 people across multiple NR offices including Waterloo, Stratford, Croydon, Paddington, Swindon & Newport. Some mini-workshops have also been held where more in depth training was provided. The benefits to the teams include better understanding of commercial and procurement, the risks involved and how to protect NR against them. Ruby is extremely patient and delivers the sessions with commitment and passion.

Christian Irwin Project Director has described Ruby as “an inspiration.”

Christian also said: ‘Ruby’s passion for our business and our people knows no bounds. Not only is she superb at her role; how she has found the time to design and deliver such a fantastic learning and development programme for our portfolio I do not know. I have attended a number of these sessions myself; and they are fantastic; so engaging, so informative and good fun too! She is really driving up the competence and the capability of my team and the wider Network Rail. I’m so grateful for what she has done and achieved.

Ruby has a way about her that brings the best out of people, her behaviours are exemplary; she drives a diversity and inclusive culture within our business and inspires people to learn and grow.”

Phil Corcoran a Project Manager within the division has described his experience of Ruby’s learning sessions: “I have attended a large number of the CPD events organised by Ruby and I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed all of them but more importantly I have always taken something away from each of them which I have been able to implement into my day to day running of projects!

The events have covered a wide range of topics and for me the CPD events have been a huge success as it has given not just me but also the wider portfolio team the opportunity to continue with self-development on a regular basis in a relaxed and comfortable environment so for this I would like to say a massive thank you to Ruby!”

Vicky Hill-Stanford Head of Profession had this to say about Ruby “I have worked with Ruby as part of the development of a commercial Community of Practice in Network Rail (NR). A key part of this has been the development of the existing staff and the development of new staff in NR. Ruby has been a fantastic advocate to have on board and we are currently rolling out the CPD events that Ruby has developed across the business so that they are available on an e-platform to all practitioners. The standard of the CPD is very high and provides a fantastic knowledge source whether for the day job or for those seeking to obtain their professional charterships. Ruby has also supported me on our recruitment campaign and has been the face of the Senior Programme Commercial Manager both at roadshows and on-line in web based media coverage.

I have found Ruby to be a highly dedicated practitioner admired and respected not just by me but by those around here and I would not have been able to accomplish the embedment of the commercial community without her. Ruby has seen her best practice incorporated into the Commercial Handbook but more importantly has also taken on board initiatives of other areas where she has seen the benefit for her team.

I worked closely with Ruby on the role out of the new NR T&Cs and unlike other areas Ruby saw the benefits of extending this training to all members of the Signalling team developing people undertaking roles in Engineering and Project Management as well as commercial.”

Personally I would be lost without Ruby as I know that I can count on her for bouncing ideas, testing new strategies and for pastoral support of apprentices. She is a joy to work with and a fantastic role model for the industry“