Althea De Souza

"Althea is the Director of Quesada Solutions Ltd, an engineering consultancy that helps people find solutions to fluid flow problems.Althea needs to be eloquent and considerate in her job as there is lots of communicating involved, including providing technical content for books and articles. As a director of her own company she needs to communicate with her clients. This matches well with the ‘Communicator’ and ‘Trainer’ types. Althea finds she needs to be sensible and self-motivated as she spends plenty of time working alone. She enjoys solving problems for customers and feeling that she is making a difference. All that really suits the ‘Quality Controller’ and ‘Coach’ types."

"Althea is the director of a consultancy for flow applications with gases and liquids. She uses computational fluid dynamics to understand flow behaviour and uses that knowledge to guide design solutions. Flow is very important in lots of industries – think about airflow in aerospace, water flow in sewerage, or liquid flow to mix and produce food or beauty products. Her role involves working with clients to understand their requirements and then communicate simulation results. Althea’s job can be quite desk-based – she is often writing, communicating by email, phone call or web-meeting. She also does some drawing using computer-aided design tools as well as setting up simulations and extracting the useful information from the results. Additionally, Althea chairs a technical group working on computational fluid dynamics publications and is the commissioning editor for a technical magazine, writing content and working with authors across the globe. She also gets to attend technical conferences, presenting and chairing sessions."

"After studying for her A-Levels and a degree (which took a few goes – at two different universities), Althea went on to do a PhD in Engineering with Computational Fluid Dynamics. She then started working in a job in this industry. The starting salary in this area is about £25,000. She worked for an international corporation for ten years then, after being made redundant by the small start-up company that she had move to, Althea decided to start her own business doing consultancy. She has always enjoyed technical problem solving and had a desire to help others do better, and starting her own business has given her great flexibility to work on projects that she enjoys, finds interesting and sees value in."

"Althea plays music both at home and in a wind band, and she also likes ballroom and Latin dancing. She really enjoys gardening and finds it very satisfying to cook with fruit and veg that she has grown. As well as that, she like doing crochet, reading sci-fi and fantasy, running and spending time with her young nephews.With her job, Althea travel to cities in the UK and Europe for conferences, and she has even been as far as the USA. She tries to ensure she gets some free time when she is away to explore too. Althea has recently recovered from breast cancer and feels that she has now reached a good place both professionally and personally. She is very happy to enjoy being here!"