ALUMNI PROFILE: Amber Spurway
Consultant at KPMG Australia
You graduated from your Bachelor of Engineering in December 2023, can you share a bit about what you have been up to since then?
After four years of trying (and failing) to adjust to the Brisbane climate in a rental without aircon or ceiling fans, I decided to move south in search of slightly cooler weather and a new city to explore. I joined KPMG’s Sydney office in their Project and Program Delivery team within the infrastructure division.
In the year that I’ve been there I’ve had the chance to work with a variety of public and private sector clients on some really exciting projects providing a range of Integrated Project Controls services. A highlight has been developing risk models for some super interesting projects going on at CSL Behring.
How have your experiences at UQ and the Liveris Academy contributed to/shaped your journey and choices so far?
In a firm as big and globally connected as KPMG, there are so many opportunities available to those who are interested. The Liveris Academy taught me to embrace every opportunity and to push myself out of my comfort zone, and carrying that mindset into my working life has helped me to make the most of all the opportunities at work.
This has included everything from getting involved as one of the committee co-leads for the KPMG NSW Graduate Committee this year, to spending a couple months working out of the CSL site in Melbourne, to helping to automate some of KPMGs legacy quality assurance processes.
Have you had any unexpected challenges/opportunities so far, and how did you navigate them using the skills developed during your time at UQ & The Liveris Academy?
The Liveris Academy taught me a lot about collaborating with different people from diverse professional and personal backgrounds, which has been invaluable when it comes to navigating complex situations with multiple stakeholders at work. As I am in a client-facing role, the communication skills taught in an engineering degree, which are then further built on through the Academy, are something I use every single day.
Both UQ and the Academy also instilled in me the value of continual learning, which has pushed me to continue to seek out new opportunities for growth both in and outside of my role.
What piece of advice would you give to current students or those about to graduate who are looking to follow a similar path?
Consulting has opportunities available for people from every field, so I’d definitely recommend taking a look at what’s available if it’s something you might be interested in, no matter what you study. People often ask me if I think there’s value in going into industry from engineering first, or whether it’s better to go straight into consulting, and I think it’s really a choose-your-own adventure.
I meet super successful people every day who have all taken a different path to consulting, including those who started as a graduate like me, and so there’s no “one path” that’s better off. Go with what you enjoy!
