JD COOLING | Events
- Name? Julie Stokes
- Whilst at school, where did you think you would take your career? Physiotherapist for a long while and then after I represented my school on some entrepreneurial workshops, I ended up studying economics instead.
- Was a career in engineering ever discussed with you at school? No
- What was your first job? Marketing executive in a financial software company if you don’t count my Saturday job in a shoe shop.
- What is your current role and what does it involve? Identifying and contacting prospective customers, introducing them to JD Cooling, meeting with them, carrying out site surveys, pricing contracts and selling JD’s service. I also work closely with the marketing team to promote JD Cooling Group and build our presence in Scotland.
- What job satisfaction do you have? I love starting with identifying a company, the correct person I need to speak to right through to handing over the site to our team and then getting great feedback from the customer on how well we are doing and how happy they are they used JD Cooling.
- What excites/interests you about the Air Conditioning & Refrigeration (ACR) industry? The diversity of customers I work with and seeing how food is produced – it feels like getting to see through the playschool window daily.
- Is it usually male orientated? Does this have any bearing on your attitude to your job? I’d say 95% of my customers are male, but we’re all people and have the same stresses and strains in life. They all just want a supplier they can rely on, so I don’t actually think it has a bearing.
- Do you have a preference to working with men, women or a mix? No preference.
- Which woman in history (past and present) inspires you the most? My Mum, she went back to study at night school when my brother and I were toddlers to sit her O’Levels & Highers (the Scottish equivalent of GCSE’s & A Levels). She then went to college when I started primary school and studied to be a teacher, graduating when I was in Primary 5. She then went on to have a career for 30 years as a primary teacher – in a time where there really weren’t that many professional working Mums. People still stop her in the street to say thank you.
- What is one thing you think that you can do to help create a gender equal world (#EachforEqual) between men and women? Encourage my daughter to be whatever she wants to be no matter what – the fact that her favourite subjects are currently maths and science means she may well and up in a historically male oriented industry.
- What is the best piece of advice you were ever given? You can’t win every fight, so choose your battles wisely.
- Is there a little-known fact about yourself that would surprise other people (secret skill, unusual hobby etc)? I have a black belt in Taekwondo.