Coffee with the Council Podcast: Meet This Year’s Europe Community Meeting Keynote Speaker, Bernie Collins

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Coffee with the Council By PCI Security Standards Council 15 min 2 speakers 7 chapters transcribed 1 month ago
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Alicia Malone 0:12
This episode of Coffee with the Council is brought to you by our podcast sponsor, Feyroot. Welcome to our podcast series, Coffee with the Council. I'm Alicia Malone, Director of Communications and Public Relations for the PCI Security Standards Council. Today, I am so excited to bring you a sneak peek interview with PCI SSE's Europe Community Meeting keynote speaker, Bernie Collins.

Who is Bernie Collins and why is she the Europe Community Meeting keynote speaker?

Alicia Malone 0:39
Bernie Collins is a Formula One strategy analyst and former race strategist who has worked at the highest levels of motorsport, including Aston Martin. She specializes in decoding the complex world of F1 strategy from tire choices and pit stops to race day decision-making and translating it into insights fans can truly understand. You might recognize her from her expert commentary on Sky Sports F1, where she breaks down the fast-paced world of Formula One with clarity and precision. With a background in mechanical engineering and years on the pit wall, Bernie brings both technical expertise and real-world racing experience to everything she does. I'm thrilled to have you with us today, Bernie.
Bernie Collins 1:26
Thank you so much for having me. And I'm looking forward to our chat over the next few minutes. And I'm looking forward to joining you all as the keynote speaker at your event at the Europe Community Meeting.
Alicia Malone 1:36
We're very excited to have you as well. So Bernie, I've just introduced you as an F1 analyst and a race strategist. But I'm curious, how do you define yourself? What title best suits you?
Bernie Collins 1:50
I think F1 strategist probably best suits me. That's the role that I'm most widely known for. It's a role that I guess I felt most comfortable in. And yeah, you know, first and foremost, I'm an engineer, but I think that final role as the F1 strategist is the one that suits my expertise within the field the best, I think.
Alicia Malone 2:11
So I'm always interested in hearing how people like you find their way into something like F1.

How did Bernie Collins’ engineering background lead her into Formula One strategy?

Alicia Malone 2:17
Did you always wanna be a strategy engineer? What is your story? How did you get started in this realm?
Bernie Collins 2:23
Yes, it's a bit of an unusual story. I think lots of people always want to work in F1. They enjoy trying to make it to that field. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I really enjoyed mathematics and physics at school and I was sort of a bit unsure what to do with those subjects or where I could bring it. So I did engineering, I did a mechanical engineering degree because that was quite broad and there was lots of things I could do with that at the end. I didn't really have a target, I didn't have a goal. Midway through that degree, I sort of became involved in some motorsport and I seen the opportunity to maybe go into some motorsport. I went on to join McLaren in their graduate program, which was sort of a year long program.
Bernie Collins 3:07
At the end of that, I moved into their design office and spent a few years working there. I had this real desire to work at the track and I spent a lot of my weekends trying to work in junior formula or more grassroots motorsport in order to try and achieve that ambition to be at the track.

What was Bernie’s career path from McLaren to Aston Martin and the pit wall?

Bernie Collins 3:27
And I spent the 2014 season as Jenson Button's performance engineer. So quite a different road strategy. But then in 2015, I decided to move teams and I moved from McLaren to Aston Martin. And it was during that switch that the job role that was available at Aston Martin had a portion of strategy involved. And that was the beginning of my journey into the world of strategy where I sort of remained until the middle of 2022.
Alicia Malone 3:54
Wonderful. Wow. What do you enjoy most about what you do and what do you find are the biggest challenges that you encounter?
Bernie Collins 4:02
What I enjoyed about being a strategy engineer was the adrenaline, that like sort of impulse decision on the pit wall. I liked in many ways influence that you had over the race results. So those split second decisions when you got it right and, you know, everything came together well and you got a better result than the team expected. There was a really good feeling in that, that teamwork element I quite enjoyed. There was obviously difficulties, you know, there was events that went badly or decisions that went badly.

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