Meet our people – Ken Fullerton
Find out more about our staff, their roles, and what their day to day looks like!
What was your path into evaluation and ARTD?
After returning to Australia having studied abroad (Germany) and having worked as a consultant in International Development on projects in South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, I was keen to continue trying to have a positive impact through consulting work in Australia. Although, I knew it would not be a like for like role that I could go into, I wanted an opportunity to apply many of the consulting skills and approaches I had already learnt.
I was researching Australian-based consulting companies widely and discovered ARTD online. At the time, they were advertising for a Consultant so I applied, was invited for an interview and then was made an offer which I was pleased to accept.
More than four years later, I’m still very happy to be working for the company and feel that I’ve definitely had ample opportunities to grow professionally and work on a huge variety of diverse and interesting projects.
Can you sum up your role as a Senior Consultant in one sentence?
To help design, implement and manage important evaluations for government and non-profit sector clients across Australia.
Particular sectors of interest include employment and entrepreneurship, environment and energy and housing and homelessness.
What was the best opportunity/ your proudest work moment since starting at ARTD?
Completing my first project (the evaluation of the Local Government Skills Strategy for the NSW Office of Local Government) as a project manager felt very satisfying. While every project is managed slightly differently – and we are all constantly learning – it helped me prove to myself that I had the skills needed to manage projects. I feel like I’ve been able to learn from many of these early management experiences (positive and negative) as I’ve continued to manage some larger and more complex evaluations.
Being promoted from Consultant to Senior Consultant in July 2020 was also very pleasing.
What is your favourite thing about working at ARTD?
Working with the people I do – colleagues, clients and stakeholders – and the opportunity to be develop such deep understandings of many public policies because of the work we do in trying to make small but positive differences.
What does a ‘day in the life’ look like for you?
This has changed a bit in recent years thanks to COVID-19 but the exciting thing for me (and I suspect many others in the company) is that no two days are the same. What I get to do, varies so much depending on the projects, proposals and other activities that I have on at the time. Unlike a scientist, for example who may spend long hours in a lab looking for tiny changes through an experiment, I love the fact that I’m involved in many different projects across different complex but often inter-connected sectors that are for different clients and can vary in length from a month or two to multi-year evaluations.
What’s something your clients may not know about you?
In 2020, I finished runner up in the Australia-wide Gill Owen Essay Prize focused on energy efficiency and social equity. My essay was on ‘How solar + storage can be a game-changer for people with disabilities.’
In 2017, I was also fortunate enough to be selected to present my University of Potsdam master thesis at the London School of Economics Africa Summit. My thesis was on the topic ‘Sustainable Development in South Africa: A Critical Analysis of the South African Government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Procurement Programme (REIPPP).’
