Leanne Godney

Arriving in London I took on many contracts and freelance jobs for companies in the UK, namely Goldman Sachs, Dresdner Kleinwort & Benson, Price Waterhouse & Coopers, Hewlett Packard, National Police Training, ComputerLand, Spring, Lambert Fenchurch, UBS, Mars, NHS, etc etc, the list goes on. 

At the NHS (Enfield) I was hired to add Microsoft Office training to their curriculum, as the only training they were currently offering was PIMs - an inhouse Patient Information Management system.  I was there for over 2 years, where I created Microsoft Office course outlines, wrote manuals, and started to teach their trainers how to use and how to teach Microsoft Office.  Each trainer passed their MOUS (Microsoft Office User Specialist) exams, and started to take on the training themselves.  I then moved on to building them a Training Database within MS Access that would completely automate all the processes needed to successfully run a training department.  For example, automated emails would go out to delegates with the course outline attached, reminders were sent, Evaluations were captured online, and all data could be collated for any reporting requirements, etc etc.

After that I moved onto Access VBA development, working firstly for Sony in Sydney, Australia for 7 months as my first attempt, and then working for Credit Suisse to create a database that contained all details about any new business coming up - i.e. trades in the pipeline.  This database grew to be a multi-user, multi-department database.  I worked closely with all the users to gather their requirements, and then did the programming myself.  After a while, this grew to such a degree that I had to convert it to a SQL Server database.

The last contract job I had before going out on my own was for UBS, also lasting around 2 years.  I was hired as an Excel VBA developer where I took on the responsibility of an Excel Application that was being used internationally - Sydney, Stamford, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and London.  It automated the collation of order files sent to the portfolio traders.  A client would send in a list of stocks to buy or sell, with any other relevant trading information.  I wrote the macros that would parse these order files, and collate the info into a central order file to be uploaded to their in-house Trading system called Opera.  I also wrote the reporting macros that would take the traded stock information and convert it into a reporting format specifically requested by the client, ready to be emailed back to them at the end of the day.  I was using Excel VBA, Outlook VBA, Word VBA, and Access VBA to automate all these tasks.

So my experience is well rounded in Microsoft Office training and in VBA development.  I've chosen to leave the corporate world now and concentrate on teaching others the skills I've learned first-hand.  I feel that my training and VBA experience will be an asset to anyone interested in gaining these skills.