Rachel Stephenson

My background is in Visual Media, Film and Television in the creative arts. I also have experience in small business management and in Information and database management. I am an all rounder who creates the templates for HB consulting. I work largely to design intelligently designed, future proof templates that help consolidate information.

I didn’t start in this field in the usual way. I have known Helen for many years and when offered a traineeship position I jumped at the chance. Initially neither of us knew that the skills I already possessed in visual media would be relevant to interpreting complex DCP/ICP information. My first task was interpreting DCPs straight from the public document and I very quickly understood that the information of the DCP needed to be centralized to assist in understanding the way it operates. With consistent feedback from my mentor I managed to create the Project Status Report template.

After that as I realised that older DCPs were difficult to apply to modern standards and that mapping requirements had changed over time. This allowed me to put some of my creative skills to use. I began taking old maps into my drawing tools and marrying projects with locations and showing visually where projects were on those maps. Recolouring and adding new keys to these maps allowed the information to translate better.

I have recently had experience with forensic accounting and examining complex apportionment information from older DCPs. It was one of those instances where the DCP was so unique that my mentor wanted as many eyes on it as possible. Eventually after a good deal of trial and error I was able to create a template that would forever calculate the apportionment requirements for the DCP.