By: Jonathan Jones
For many engineers and asset managers their career progression is to begin by specialising in a technical area before moving into a management or leadership role.
Successfully making that transition requires the acquisition of a set of new and different skills, and the reality is that tertiary and professional education has not always been targeted and flexible enough to support this.
Many professionals have had to pick up critical skills they require for more senior roles largely through observing colleagues and through trial and error on the job.
IPWEA is a strong believer in lifelong learning and has responded with the development of the Asset Management Pathway which has become popular not just in Australasia but internationally.
The Pathway has become widely recognised, and has helped many professionals represent their job skills at an increasingly national and international level.
Recently, the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at the University of NSW recognised IPWEA’s Professional Certificate in Asset Management as part of its own Certificate in Executive Management and Development (CEMD Pathway).
What this means in practice is that the AGSM, ranked as Australia’s top business school by the Financial Times, will give four credit points to those with the IPWEA certification.
This comprises one third of the 12 credit points required to achieve the CEMD, which can then in turn be used as a credit towards one of the AGSM’s Graduate Certificates or highly ranked MBA programs.
The AGSM collaboration recognises that many pathway participants are already qualified professionals with degrees in areas such as engineering, accounting or science.
It opens up a respected leadership and management pathway which professionals can add as part of lifelong learning as their careers mature and develop.
As professionals contemplate their five to ten year career goals, many will aspire to progress from technical roles to executive leadership, which needs skills in areas such as finance, change management and human performance.
A combination of that original hands on operational experience and knowledge along with high levels of competency in business management is an ideal skill set to be a chief executive officer of a local government organisation, to give one example.
While the AGSM collaboration is about management skills, IPWEA is also enhancing global recognition opportunities for those with a technical focus through the World Partners in Asset Management (WPiAM) Global Certification Scheme.
More technically focussed, this is a specific asset management scheme which offers several levels of certification, such as the Certified Practitioner in Asset Management (CPAM) and Certified Senior Principal in Asset Management (CSAM).
