Michelle Forrest
Ask me about
- How I worked out what I wanted to 'be when I grew up'
- If I have any regrets regarding my career choices
- What a day in my role actually looks like
About me
I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I studied Commerce as I thought that was general enough to keep my options open. When looking for jobs, everything sounded dull, except one – Graduate Energy Trader. To me, that sounded really fun and interesting, and thankfully I got the job! 6 months in I was promoted to Trader, another 6 months and I was promoted again to Spot Trading Manager. My next promotion took 3 years, but the one after that was only a few months later. I was the first female, and the youngest ever, executive at the company.
I then wanted the broadest role possible, so I moved to another company and instead of leading the trading division, I was it, solo. This was incredible experience, but not the best cultural fit for me. I then joined a huge company and managed to try all sorts of interesting roles for nearly 10 years, only to learn I actually enjoyed trading more than anything else. So, I moved back into a trading role, and here I am today.
About my role
- Calm
- Curious
- Optimistic
- Practical
- Rational
As part of the Energy Trading team at ACEN Australia, my role as Senior Originator looks after the longer-term part of our portfolio, while others in the team focus on the shorter term. We have a large pipeline of new solar, wind, battery, and hydro projects we would like to build across Australia. These projects cost billions of dollars each, which means we need loans from lots of banks to get enough money to build them. In order for the banks to lend us money, they need to see that our revenues are fairly certain over the long term (10 years plus).
The electricity spot market here is very volatile (its actually the most volatile commodity market in the world!). Power stations selling all of their power directly into this market would have very uncertain revenues, so they enter into contracts with buyers to agree a fixed price. This also helps buyers with revenue certainty as well. My role is to negotiate contracts with large energy users to sell the power from our new power stations before they're even built. This gives us revenue certainty, which makes the banks happy enough to loan us money, and means we can then build our projects!
Education
- Bachelors Degree - Commerce, major Stats and Forecasting, minor Economics
- AFMA Accredited (including RM accredited)
- Diploma of Financial Services
- Advanced Diploma of Financial Services
Subjects
- Building and Construction Skills
- Business Studies
- English
- Geography
- Industrial Technology
- Languages
- Legal Studies
- Mathematical Methods (Maths B)
- Physical Education
- Physics
- Science
- Specialist Mathematics (Maths C)
Hobbies
- Beach adventures
- Gym
- Hiking
- Seeing family and friends
- Travel
Pets
- 2 Dog
15 year old me!!
My career journey
-
Studied commerce and landed my dream graduate role
-
Received loads of promotions quickly
-
Accepted a broader role to diversify experience
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Joined a large company to try even more
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Moved back to what I enjoyed the most
My typical day
My employer
