Plant Assessor is growing again!

We’ve had a bunch of new staff members join the Plant Assessor team in the past few months. Get to know a little about them!

Shahzaib Bukhari – Customer Success Specialist

Background: I was born in Pakistan and spent my childhood and teenage years there. Once I passed college, I came to Australia for my undergrad. I have 2 siblings and I am the middle child. I have always been a social person and used to love hosting social events while attending college. 

Education: I attended a Turkish school based in Pakistan which is why I am also fluent in speaking and understanding the Turkish language. In Australia, I studied a Bachelor of Business at the University of Newcastle and graduated in 2020. 

Career: My first job ever was a kitchen hand in a restaurant while I was a student. It took me some time to figure out what career path I wanted but I realised I wanted to interact with people regularly as I build connections easily. That is when I started my career as a customer contact and hoped to progress in this career.

Last job: I was working with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia as a Customer Contact Specialist before starting with Plant Assessor. This journey with CBA gave me experience to deal with clients and build connections professionally before I started working for PA.

Outside work: I am a huge cricket fan and have been playing with the University of Newcastle team for 4 years now. I have always wanted to learn to play tennis but never got the chance to (this could be my new year’s resolution actually). I like to talk about cryptocurrency but do not like trading it as I have hardly ever made a profit and mostly lost my savings (do not tell this to my fiancé). P.S I speak 4 languages apart from my mother tongue (that’s a flex). 

Max Carpenter – Customer Success Specialist

Background: I was born in Sydney in 1989 at Hornsby Hospital. I’m the youngest of 3, the oldest my brother and my older sister next. At 3 years old, my family moved to Denver Colorado for 5 years. I did a couple years of school over there, but came back into year 3 of school in The Hills District of Sydney. I always loved sports and music and got involved with both whenever I could. 

Education: I attended PHCS in Dural, in the Hills District. I didn’t go to uni, I was too focused on my creative endeavors. I didn’t like school that much; wasn’t really for me. I am much better at learning from a practical place.  

Career: My first job after school started before I’d actually finished, and by the time I’d finished I moved into a manager role. It was a retail store, and I ended up managing two stores at 19 yrs old. After this I moved into a plethora of different roles, but over the years I always had Project Management and also being a gigging musician as pretty much constant roles. 

Last job: Most recently was working as a full time musician as well as still having various contracted project roles. 

Outside work: I’m single, no kids, a dog named Don who’s 4 and a half years old. I’m not a coin collector, I don’t really ballroom dance although I’d give it a go, I’ve never been scuba diving, I like spending large amounts of money on guitars though. Seeing as I’ve only recently stopped gigging every weekend, the world (weekends) is (are) my oyster. I like to bushwalk, go four wheel driving and go camping.

Dinh Do – Business Development Representative

Background: I was born and raised in Newcastle and my background is Vietnamese. I am the youngest of 4, 2 older brothers and a sister. Went to St Pius X 7-10 and St Francis Xavier 11-12. To this day I’m pretty proud of my sporting achievements in school but it’s always good to reminisce about your young fit self. Am I right?? Also pushed my djing career pretty far which was definitely a highlight in my life.

Education: I completed a certificate IV frontline management at TAFE thinking I would dive into event management at one stage of life but that was something else I never pursued like the other hundreds of things I thought I wanted to become.

Career/last job: I finished school and worked with my parents for a couple of years at their fish n chipo in Redhead. Then I worked at my brother’s fish n chipo in Wallsend for a few years and helped him manage that and whilst being a radical DJ at the same time. I actually took DJing pretty seriously and created a brand and business for myself traveling back and forth to Sydney playing multiple venues and events. I then thought it was time to put some serious pants on and took up a role at Cardiff Toyota as a salesperson and sadly hung up the headphones shortly after. I was a salesman for about 2 years before moving into a business manager role (finance & insurance) for about just shy of 2 years. Then got promoted to Senior Business Manager or head of F&I at another dealer in Maitland. I worked there for 10 months and found it wasn’t really for me and now have found my new home here at Plant Assessor.

Outside work: I have a partner, her lovely name is Ashlee. We have a pup child by the name of Vincent aka Vinny. I’m basically a middle aged man in a young man’s body. I love my sports, barbecuing and lush green lawn.