Job spotlight: Rossella Perniola, Introba

What is a typical day in your job?

I work with clients, from the concept stage to handover, to make their buildings greener and cheaper to run by making the services more efficient. My focus is on ventilation, heating and cooling systems. The role is incredibly varied and my team works across sectors such as residential, offices, hotels and schools.

Whatever the building is, our starting point is always to understand how we can optimise the design to do the heavy lifting on energy use.

Our main goal is to create a building that doesn’t need as much energy to light, heat or cool it in the first place, promoting a “fabric first” approach.

The job involves a lot of dialogue with clients, architects and equipment manufacturers to keep everybody engaged throughout a project.

We play a pivotal role in making sure end users have lower utility bills and helping the industry hit bigger commitments around carbon reduction.

The job certainly keeps me motivated and on my toes.

What skills do you need to do your job? How do you keep them updated?

I find that the most important skill is often communication. That might sound surprising, but when you’re in a project team, getting people all working together towards the same net zero goal is so important. There are always new things to learn.  

On the technical side, I regularly read industry journals and listen to podcasts, but the real difference comes from speaking to other people.

There’s an invaluable source of knowledge among engineers within industry groups, manufacturers and colleagues. The beauty of Introba especially is that we have a really great culture of knowledge sharing.       

An important area of your work is understanding and driving innovation in MEP systems. What about this aspect of your role presents the biggest challenges and what brings you the most satisfaction?

I enjoy pushing the boundaries of what we can do with new technologies. On one project, for example, we’re designing an ambient loop system, which works by sharing the energy generated by heat pumps across a mixed-use estate.

Using a water loop, the energy is transferred from offices – where you want workplaces to be cool and comfortable – into homes – where people want hot water.

Probably one of the biggest challenges is the fast pace of change in legislation. We have to make sure that we are helping clients anticipate what’s coming next.

What are your work values?  

Having an open and honest work culture is key because it means you have the confidence to try things – and I’m pleased to say that Introba really embraces that.

I think curiosity matters in our sector too. You’ve got to keep learning and asking questions, particularly when grappling with a big challenge like net zero.