Sarah Osborne | Kent Community Foundation
After my master’s degree in Theology and Sociology, I started working for a grant making foundation.
It wasn’t until my CEO took me under her wing and encouraged me to become the foundation’s company secretary and recognised my skills in governance that I started to realise I might have stumbled upon a career.
I took the chance of some time away from work during my first maternity leave to study for my Certificate in Charity Law and Governance with CGI and I have been pursuing the path for greater understanding of excellence in governance ever since.
I’ve been Kent Community Foundation’s Company Secretary for over five years and am passionate about not only outstanding governance but organisational culture, behavioural governance, equality and ethics. I never pass off the opportunity for a conference or webinar and love the chance to be a student again. I work not only as secretary to the board but have oversight of many operational areas of our charity, such as relationships with our investment managers, financial processes, IT, data and HR and policies. The variety of my role is one of my favourite things about it.
I have been incredibly lucky to have worked for inspiring female leaders who have shown me the power of female leadership; to not be shy or apologetic and to be assertive, but above all empathic. The trust and respect I have been shown from those above me has given me real confidence in my ability and ambition to achieve more.
Julia Robertson-Avenell | Hays Life Sciences
I am a Cancer Research volunteer who is dedicated to increasing the sales revenue of our local shop.
By researching items that I believe could be valuable, I am able to display them at a higher price, thereby increasing overall takings.
Volunteering has given me the opportunity to work with a truly diverse work/volunteer force, and has enabled me to become more confident in myself.
I am Co-Founder of the Essex PA Network. This was founded back in 2016 when I was then in a PA role. I am still involved in this network as I feel it is extremely important to develop and support people where you can.
During lockdown, I was a Befriender for MIND/Age UK, where I used to telephone a gentlemen each week to ensure he has human contact, and that Age UK could be assured that he was ok.
My fulltime role is of a Senior Relationship Manager.
In this role I support c.200 pharmaceutical workers. Assisting them with contract queries, payment queries and role queries.
I absolutely love this role. It's connected me with some incredible people, doing incredible things in the pharmaceutical research sector.
I am also a Mental Health First Aider and Wellbeing Ambassador. During lockdown 2 I studied and achieved TQUK in MH Awareness.
I believe that you can only become a better/more rounded person by continually educating yourself in something that is important to you. Which is why I will continue to study mental health and continue to make changes in the company I am in.
Xanthe Blain | NatWest
Xanthe approaches her personal and professional life with huge positivity and enthusiasm, seeking and creating opportunities to maximise contribution to colleagues, the organisation and society.
She is results-driven, demonstrated by achieving a First and straight A*s as a first-generation university student who financially supported her studies with part-time jobs.
Her banking career started in the secondary debt market. She has since helped project manage a team to deliver a pioneering app that will support small business customers with tracking their carbon footprints. In Coutts, she supported clients with real estate, corporate advisory and private equity services. She managed a book of 85 clients with £50m+ property purchases in the pipeline. Now, she is working as a Leveraged & Acquisitions Finance analyst. Alongside her work, she is studying for Advanced Diploma in Banking and Leadership in a Digital Age with the Chartered Banker Institute.
She is passionate about helping develop others, having co-led the Innovation & Development Council for 800 graduates, overseeing delivery of 70+ events and orchestrated a pioneering climate summit. She founded a competition to give youth colleagues a platform to voice their visions of a better future, which was endorsed by Alison Rose and the Global Ethical Finance Initiative. The finalists were able to present to an international audience of 900 attendees. She has also created a podcast series with C-Suite, entrepreneurs and Directors which aims to share knowledge from experienced colleagues and individuals to those starting their careers. She was nominated for a Tech Community Star award for connecting colleagues during the pandemic with a ‘coffee roulette’ initiative, which paired individuals to make new connections across the department. She also leads a LeanIn circle to support a group of 12 female colleagues with personal and professional development.
She is passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship, having been one of seven Innovation Fellows at the University of Warwick. In this role, she supported student entrepreneurs and provided opportunities that sought to develop creativity, innovation, design thinking and entrepreneurship on campus. Since joining the bank, she has a continued interest in innovation, specifically in supporting diverse business founders. She has volunteered at Investment Round Tables with female entrepreneurs and worked towards the launch of the UK Enterprise Fund which supports investment into diverse, growth businesses across the UK. She volunteered for 10 weeks to support an entrepreneur with their sustainable greeting card company, LoopLoop and she participated and won an Innovation & Development Hackathon, innovating an employee mobility app.
Outside of work, she plays netball and captains the Coutts Netball team. She has volunteered with the Princes Trust to deliver workshops and be a CV mentor; SmartWorks to support their charity sales and stock management and The Conservation Volunteers, helping plant trees. She has fundraised money doing a charity abseil for Samaritans. This year, she hopes to partake in a charity week sailing with visually impaired people.
She has been selected to be part of bank wide Talent Academy and has roles as a Sustainability Champion, Women in Business Champion and Future Change Shaper in the Bank.
Rugiyya Gahramanli | London Stock Exchange Group
Have you heard of 2011 romcom ‘From Prada to Nada’? Well, I did the opposite: I went from Nada to Prada, in figurative sense.
And I am writing the below, - how ever hard it might be to admit our pasts sometimes, - so that if there are young girls (or boys) out there, who find themselves in similar situations, they can read this and have confidence that they can win, too.
I was born and raised in Azerbaijan in a financially disadvantaged family, which was surely challenging, but only motivated me to study and work hard towards my future. Being on top of my class, I managed to secure a seat in one of the most prestigious universities in Baku. When in my second year, I decided to apply to government’s study abroad programme, which, if successful, would pay towards my degree and livelihood abroad. With little hope there was for a young girl who has never been abroad before for financial reasons and against the tough competition among thousands of students for such a dream opportunity, there I was a few months later with an unconditional offer from King’s College London (KCL), top 17th university in the world at the time, and, following numerous interviews, a confirmation of the state’s funding programme. In September 2014, at the age of 20, with only a USD100 bill in my pocket, I arrived in London. Alone. And this is how my journey began.
While at KCL, I became a class president of c. 250 students for the final two consecutive years; secured a summer internship with London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in my penultimate year and received an offer to come back for a full-time job after graduation, - easy to type now, but these milestones were quite tough to achieve, and I am not even mentioning the cultural shock and the stress of adjustment! In short four years at LSEG, I built a strong reputation within Capital Markets and with other teams, progressed through the career ladder as a result of my hard work and dedication, and started building my network in the industry.
I guess, it is true that we carry our history wherever we go. Hence, it should come as no surprise that my dissertation at KCL was dedicated to emerging economies; that when at LSEG, I volunteered for MyBigCareer and secured seats for five high school graduates from London’s deprived neighbourhoods on UCAS clearing day; that I joined my ex-groupmate’s initiative, DiverCity Mentorship scheme, to help penultimate and final year students secure jobs in the financial industry in London, which I am still part of. Another phenomenon that I observed was that, although my personal experience toughened me up, there were so many women around me who were still struggling with gender inequality. This triggered my interest in attending seminars on gender topics in the industry and joining different women’s networks. Currently, I am a Women Inspired Network’s (WIN) UK Committee member, where I actively help spread the word on diversity and inclusion.
So, if you are reading this, dear twenty-something rising star, be sure that hard work always pays off; and when you do win, please help others win, too.
Hema Sood | Morgan Stanley
Hema graduated with a Bachelor’s in Engineering at City University of London. She began her career in 2007 at Cable and Wireless as part of the Engineering Graduate Scheme, where she held several roles.
She worked in multiple teams such as Voice Engineering, IP & Data, Submarine Systems Engineering delivering projects abroad in Cancun, Mexico for over 6 months as a project coordinator. Hema completed her Prince2 qualifications and started as a project manager in 2009 working in Core Infrastructure and then moved teams to be an IT Software Project manager in 2010.
Hema joined Sky in 2011 as a Broadband and Networks Project Manager. She was responsible for projects spanning Core, Peering and Transit and Subsea cable builds delivering many high-profile projects such as building the Core and Edge network for Sky Mobile and delivery of the European Video Multicast WAN solution for Formula 1 and PGA Golf Tour which had hard deadlines depending on the launch dates. In 2016 Hema joined Facebook as a Sourcing Manager for EMEA, where she managed the IP Transit Growth for all EMEA POP sites. She created and implemented automated reporting for the global team to monitor overutilized connections with vendors across EMEA POPs, to ensure upgrades are planned and delivered before being at risk and impacting users she also developed. Hema joined Playtech as a Customer Project Manager in 2017 with Ladbrokes as her customer for UK and Belgium, deploying enhancements on their websites, and other mobile platforms ahead of the 2018 football world cup. The
company launched a new Playtech Open Platform (POP) and Ladbrokes were one of the first customers and Hema successfully deployed this in their network.
Hema joined Morgan Stanley in 2018. She spent her first two years as a Technical Project Manager within Enterprise Network Services. In 2020 she moved to the Enterprise Security Platform department as a Global Service Delivery Manager. She is leading the Web Security squad and the Tooling squad through an agile transformation, where she is responsible for the overall delivery of the squad processes, performance improvement, and client communications while also managing project risks.
Hema is also passionate about giving back and committing to diversity and inclusion she is a great leader in these initiatives where she takes part in many of them such as Women In Technology, Net South Asia Diversity Network, Mentoring programs for young kids from underprivileged backgrounds, departmental diversity groups as well as helping with apprenticeship/graduate program interviews and assessment centres.
Outside of work, Hema enjoys going to the gym regularly, drawing animals and still life, has a passion for travelling and experiencing new cultures, being an avid reader, she also runs a book club. She is very close with her family and friends and loves spending time with them. Hema is a supporter of Great Ormond Street hospital where she has raised money by participating in walks and the London 10k, she now also volunteers at the hospital at the Arts and Crafts centre.
Aneesah Sarwar | Barclays
Aneesah is a Strategy Assistant Vice President at Barclays driving strategy at one of the UK’s biggest retail banks which inherently touches a substantial part of society.
Before this, Aneesah graduated with a BSc in Economics from the University of Warwick, where she also led the 2019 Warwick Economics Summit. She then completed a graduate programme at Barclays, gaining experience in strategic transformation, product management, performance optimisation, data and digital.
She is passionate about helping disadvantaged or overlooked groups realise and reach their full potential. After winning Barclays’ Social Intrapreneurship Challenge, Aneesah channelled this passion to co-found and run Her Own Boss, a podcast and community with over 2000 members designed to help young women overcome career barriers and build confidence. Her Own Boss provides inspirational role models, a strong community and practical advice to help women get ahead in their careers and is sponsored by Barclays Eagle Labs in support of Barclays’ commitment to the Investing in Women Code. In 2021, Her Own Boss won a Barclays Citizenship and Diversity Award for enhancing skills and employment.
Additionally, Aneesah forms part of the leadership team for Inspire, which is Barclays’ new Employee Resource Group (colleague network) representing those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, amplifying their voices and growing allyship by driving awareness, education and career development support. Specialising in communications at Inspire, Aneesah is building and providing strong mechanisms for Inspire to improve social mobility and socioeconomic inclusion in the workforce and across society.
Repeatedly fuelled by her passion to help people realise and reach their full potential, Aneesah also set up and now jointly runs a new support system for the graduates and apprentices in her business area. This includes a welcome induction, regular fireside chats with senior leaders, mentoring and buddy matches, socials and monthly support sessions.
Ashwitha Bingumalla | Instinet
Ash is a Part-Time Masters in Finance student at London Business School and also a Merit Scholar.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Imperial College London and is currently working as a Business Analyst/Product Owner at Instinet in London. Due to the growing regulatory environment shaping the financial industry, technology is often sought as the best solution for firms to stay competitive. Ash’s undergraduate studies in Computer Science have helped her tackle and increase automation in the algorithmic trading space at Credit Suisse and now in her current role at Instinet. She is the sole EU Execution Management System Owner, facing off to the Front Office and gathering / expanding upon all requirements. As the EU lead, she then represents these requirements with the global development team following up as required and ensuring testing and seamless implementation. In addition to her Business Analyst role, Ash is a Product Owner for the in-house trading and analytics applications at Instinet. She has worked very hard and her significant contributions have helped to revolutionise the analytics space to a leading platform provider. Ash also has some more operational duties, namely producing trading performance reports for clients and directly dealing with their queries.
Ash’s other areas of interest include being a passionate member and ambassador of the STEM community. She has organised lessons at disadvantaged schools and encouraged many students to pursue STEM degrees. At London Business School, she is involved with the Women in Business Club, the Impact Investing Club as well as being an Executive Committee Member of India Club and a Student Ambassador for the school.
Amy Paterson | Barclays
Joining the Banking industry straight from high school, Amy is an experienced and passionate Risk professional who has worked in financial services for over 10 years.
With a strong background in Credit Risk, Amy is currently working for Barclays UK on secondment as a Vice President in the Chief Risk Office.
Amy is enthusiastic about her own development and continues to enjoy academic study with the London Institute of Banking and Finance alongside her role in Barclays. Having recently completed her Diploma in Banking Practise & Management whilst working full time, Amy will now begin the final year of Part-time study for her Honours Degree, with study scheduled to begin in May 2022.
Amy is also very passionate about supporting the personal development of other young professionals. Working hard to empower a diverse, next generation of Emerging leaders, Amy serves as the Deputy Chair for Scottish Financial Enterprise Young Professionals and the Scotland Chair of Barclays Emerge Network. Both networks are designed to develop, influence and connect young talent across the financial services industry. Amy uses a collaborative and inclusive leadership approach to give those new to the industry the opportunity to shape the initiatives and objectives of the networks and ensure they are tailored to member’s needs.
Tara O'Neill | Bank of England
Tara is “Intelligent, organised, capable...Truly exceptional.” – Ex. Deputy Head of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Executive Director at the Bank of England.
Having worked at the Bank of England for ten years, Tara has been a press officer, private secretary to the Executive Director of Insurance Supervision, policy-maker and supervisor.
Tara is now a manager in the Governance and Controls Function, ensuring the PRA has effective governance arrangements in place and that the robustness of decision making is maintained. This sees Tara manage the PRA Practitioner Panel and Insurance Sub-Committee and the Bank of England complaints process.
Tara’s academics are founded in Law and Politics, studying at Cardiff University and being awarded the Jordon Publishing Law Prize. Tara obtained a distinction in her Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, focusing on corporate finance, M&A and banking law. Tara is currently completing an MBA (Strategic Leadership and Management) at Exeter University whilst working full-time.
As a notable ally for diversity and inclusion, Tara is a mentor as part of the 'Rise Up' scheme (a community seeking to empower women to progress confidently with their careers and boost minority representation at leadership level). Tara is also a member of the Bank of England Disability Network, Women in the Bank Network and Parent+ Network.
Outside of work, Tara is an exhibited artist (7QGallery) and has been featured in several publications including House & Garden magazine. Within the local community, Tara helps to organise the Chepstow Festival of Arts and is Grants Manager for the Dell Primary School Parent Teacher Association.
That being said, Tara’s most important role is being ‘Mum’ to her three children.
Fiona Chan | HSBC
Starting as a reserved young woman on the HSBC graduate scheme 16 years ago, after reading Law at the London School of Economics, I have taken every opportunity to use my voice.
Having won the National graduate challenge in two consecutive years, I was personally awarded a secondment to Vancouver. I managed a portfolio of high net worth clients before moving into Financial Crime Compliance, and achieved a Distinction in the International Compliance Association Anti-Money Laundering Diploma. I led the UK Asset Management business through a successful visit from the US Regulators. This involved preparing senior executives and colleagues for their interviews and my own with the US Monitor.
When the rapidly growing Alternative Investments business moved into Asset Management, I managed both the AM role and the Alternatives Senior FCC role. I successfully gained the senior position, upon showing management that I was capable and wanted the added responsibility. I have volunteered with the charity ‘Making the Leap’, providing interview practice and advice for underprivileged school children which has been very fulfilling and was invited to a gala event for my contribution.
After a high risk pregnancy and traumatic birth, I required a surgical operation when I returned to work full time, and looked after my baby without external support as the UK went into national lockdown. From sharing this experience and my work on DE&I projects within HSBC such as the Asset Management Global Mentoring Scheme and Reciprocal Mentoring with a lens on ethnicity with the Chief Compliance Officer, I was honoured to win the Women in Investment Awards 2021, Most Inspiring Returner Award.