From MSD to Top 100 Women: meet Elinor
MSD alumna Elinor Moshe recently featured in Top 100 Women, an initiative celebrating influential women in the construction industry. The Master of Construction Management graduate shared her insights on building her career with the Top 100 Women community.
What inspired Elinor to choose this path:
I started my journey in the built environment with architecture, but lacked the creativity and reward out of the design process. I looked for the planning, financial control, management and logic of the build and came across construction. My first year of post-graduate studies really opened my eyes and started answering so many questions I had about how buildings are put together. I am really process orientated and structured in my ways, so construction management from the outset suited me. And soon after I realised women were a minority group in the industry, so I set myself the focused challenged of one day becoming a senior industry leader to demonstrate that construction is a very viable and rewarding industry for women. To date, the work I have done in the industry has only pushed me to greater heights than before, so I am continuously inspired to go down this path in excitement for what can be achieved and attained.
Elinor’s driving factors are:
Whether it's the thrill of the build or that feeling I get when I let a trade package under budget (and it also stays that way), or when a subcontractor comes and says they'll like working for me again; it's all for the sheer passion of what I do. It's the constant hum that keeps me going to do my best on whatever it is at hand.
And secondly, I don't want to look back on my career and think ‘I should have done more, or, I should have done this differently'. I maximise the opportunities I have to reap the rewards and define my career as I see fit. I'm the only one who can shape it, and lead it to where I want it to go. Considering the sheer hours spent at work, it's worth being where you want to be!
The characteristic Elinor had to develop most in her time in the industry is:
Construction is such a people oriented industry. Just about everything we do is about people and relationships. It's about getting the best out of people, having them lean into a problem and collaborate on the solution, to follow up on their promises. Whether it's called leadership or emotional intelligence, empathy, I've strongly focused my attention to be on a conscious growth journey to understand and collaborate with people. There is more value in people than in the dollar, and to get that in a project, typically means successful project outcomes for all involved.
What Elinor loves most about her job is:
The dynamic nature of every day and of every hour. The constantly changing environment is highly conducive to constant learning and growth across multiple platforms. One day, or hour, is focused on finance, the next contracts, the next you're discussing build details with a contractor. And I love the constant interaction with many different people of diverse backgrounds and experiences which really help to shape my understanding of the built environment. Above all, I love that sense of accomplishment with the project team when you hand over a facility to a client and say to yourself, ‘I worked on this, I did that’. The building will (hopefully) be here for a lot longer than I will, and it's remarkably rewarding to be part of something so much greater than yourself.
Elinor describes herself as:
Quiet Achiever.
If you are interested in studying the Master of Construction Management come to our Grad Study Evening this October 25th, 2018
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Top 100 Women
Top 100 Women aims to promote positive aspects of change in construction and recognise women within the industry contributing to societal change.
Thanks to Top 100 Women Founding Director Tamika Smith for permission to reproduce this profile.