Case Studies

Its organisation that, through its three exam boards has over 150 years experience delivering assessment worldwide and leads the field of academic research on assessment and education. The answer is a little bit of right place right time, a huge amount of hard work and a fair bit of NEBOSH thrown in, of course.

Maria Anderson came to the UK in 1999. She travelled here from Spain where she had completed a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering, specialising in plastics and polymers. Colombia has a huge petro-chemical industry and Maria’s chosen educational path was all part of a plan to gain employment in this sector. 

However, things changed completely when Maria came to London as a student. With only basic English she found part-time work in a pub and it was here she met a man from Liverpool, fell in love, moved north and got married.

Her English began to improve and with such a strong academic background she visited the University of Liverpool to seek out employment opportunities. At the time the university was partnering with a small local company developing a research and development laboratory. Maria became their laboratory manager and soon began to develop a passion for health and safety. 

“I decided health and safety should be my employment plan B,” Maria explained. “So that was when I discovered NEBOSH, took my National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety and achieved a distinction.”

Maria became even more involved in health and safety at work and so she threw herself into the NEBOSH National Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety, studying at night at Bolton University and gained her Diploma in 2007. 

Thanks to her Diploma, Maria quickly found work as a health and safety consultant. To improve her specialist knowledge she added the NEBOSH National Certificate in Fire Safety and Risk Management and NEBOSH National Certificate in Construction Health and Safety to her list of qualifications. 

After working as a consultant and trainer for a number of years Maria was appointed health and safety manager at the British Museum. “I’d been looking to get back into management for a while because I wanted to implement more so this role was perfect for me at the time,” Maria told us. “As well as looking after the safety of 6.7 million visitors each year, there were all kinds of unusual risks to manage, from asbestos in some of the fabric exhibits, to poisonous arrows from Africa. I loved my time at the museum but after four years I felt ready for a new challenge. I applied for the role of Group Head of Health, Safety and Wellbeing at Cambridge Assessment and was successful.

Since joining the company my main focus has been on the health bit of health and safety. Many organisations are now paying more attention to the wellbeing of their people, and Cambridge Assessment is no different. In my first year with the organisation we relaunched our wellbeing programme “Healthy You”, delivering awareness sessions and increasing the fitness classes provided. We have also launched “Healthy Mind” which aims to raise awareness of mental health issues and will soon be carrying out the first stress assessment in the organisation. It is exciting times!” 

“The experience I gained in my previous roles helped me to secure my current position. But I have to say my NEBOSH qualifications were a big part of me getting to where I am now, in fact I can say that for my career, NEBOSH was the best decision I ever made.”