PhD Students: Where are they now? – Isabel Divanna
Isabel Divanna is an Associate Director at The Carbon Trust, with over 25 years’s experience as a commercial director and BD lead across various sectors. Amongst her professional interests, she has raised funds from the whole fundraising mix also.
Isabel is an enthusiastic public speaker for the Carbon Trust, a delegate at Davos, New York Climate Week, and London Climate Action Week.
Learn how an enthusiast on European History from Brazil completed her PhD studies and quickly decided academia wasn’t the path she wished to continue with.
Watch Isabel Divanna Full Interview
What was your research project?
Isabel is originally from Brazil; Brazilians are big Europeans lovers, with a huge interest in European history and languages.
Due to a high interest in European backgrounds, Isabel studied 19th-century French Medievalism as her research topic.
Isabel has a strong interest in medieval history, which she studied and completed her undergraduate dissertation on whilst she was in Brazil. At this moment, Isabel really wanted to travel to Europe to do her postgraduate studies.
However, her knowledge of Latin and Greek was scratchy, which led her to believe she couldn’t focus on medieval history for her PhD.
It wasn’t long before Isabel decided it would be a great opportunity to come to the UK and study something she genuinely loved: medieval history.
How did you pick the right supervisor?
Isabel’s professor was Gary Stedman Jones at the University of Cambridge. Gary was an authority on Marxism, but also the 19th century.
He had a different perspective on political thought and intellectual history from the likes of others who were also in Cambridge.
Isabel found her supervisor to be extremely helpful in anything related to academia.
What was your journey like after completing your PhD?
Once Isabel completed her PhD, she got her postdoc, which allowed her to stay in Cambridge a little longer.
Her postdoc was focused on something different, looking into Brazilian history and the overlap between intellectual history in Brazil and in France.
She chose this topic because she was informed it would be easier for her to gain academic credibility as a Brazilian with her language and skill set.
However, that did indeed come with challenges, as there was no interest in the topic from Isabel, which soon became the end of her academic career.
It wasn’t long before Isabel turned her gaze to a postdoc. Focusing on ‘what else do academics do?’. It was at this point that Isabel became interested in where her career took her, working in consultancy and in think tanks and in the not-for-profit sector.
She now uses the skills learned in academia as a PhD student but doing something quite different.
In what way has your PhD shaped your path to where you are today?
Isabel feels her PhD hasn’t shaped her path in many ways, as she no longer works with history.
In fact, as she now works within business, a worker sustainability consultancy, Isabel is now very much against people looking into history too much.
She finds it is much more important for people to understand what is happening now, and what the motivations are.
Isabel expresses that she really did enjoy her days as a PhD student; she had funding but also had to fund some areas herself. It was a very valuable experience, both for credibility as a professional later on, but also from what she has learned from it.
What do you hope to achieve in the future?
Isabel now works in think tanks and membership bodies, reporting to the CEO working as a sustainability consultancy.
In academia, Isabel felt she could teach students; she had fantastically smart students, she could publish things that some people read, but felt she really wanted to make a difference.
Working in think tanks and consultancy, Isabel feels she can make a bigger difference, and that is what she hopes to continue to achieve in the future.
During her career Isabel has worked in defence and aerospace, renewable energy and sustainability. Not forgetting, working at a special needs school.
In all Isabel’s roles, she felt like she was making a difference.
A true reflection of who Isabel is and what she wishes to continue to deliver as a person and in her career.
Isabel is an award-winning Director-level strategist, marketing and business development professional. She is an Associate Director and Commercial Lead in Sustainable Finance at The Carbon Trust. She has previously held senior consulting and business development roles at Eunomia Research & Consulting and as Commercial Director at RenewableUK, EngineeringUK, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and at the Bar Council. She is an expert in transition planning and carbon management and reporting / disclosures. Isabel has worked in the professional services (consulting, research and advisory) across FMCG, ICT, legal, med tech, engineering, renewable energy, defence & aerospace, and pharma. Isabel has an MBA, two PhDs in history and moral & political philosophy, various professional certificates in ESG, Sustainability and Business Management from learned institutes. Outside of work, she is a Trustee and Vice Chair of the Board of the International House London.
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