Ndidi Ezenwa | Juven
I am a private equity lawyer by background, having started my career at international law firm, White & Case LLP working in London and Singapore.
While in private practice, I spent almost a decade advising a diverse range of UK and international financial sponsors on investments into emerging markets, particularly Africa. My clients comprised of leading private equity firms, development institutions and other financial sponsors.
I was raised in the North East of England but moved to London to study law at the London School of Economics. As a person of African origin, I have always been interested in the development of the African investment landscape and have been fortunate to have the opportunity to combine this with my legal background.
I currently work as the General Counsel of private investment firm Juven, which is the spin off of Goldman Sachs’ Africa investing business. Having advised Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group on all of its investments into Africa since 2016, I was invited to join Juven’s founding team in 2020. Juven primarily invests in high growth, tech-enabled and consumer businesses in Africa, by providing flexible growth capital to fill the gap between venture capital funding and late stage private equity.
As part of my role, I also provide direct strategic support to investee companies and their legal teams, either by supporting legal work or providing mentoring and training. I was fortunate enough to be seconded to Kobo360, a technology start-up and one of Juven’s portfolio companies in Lagos for 9 months as acting Head of Legal and Investor Relations.
I am also passionate about mentoring the next generation, having mentored a large number of junior lawyers over my career and as a mentor for leading diversity platform, Aspiring Solicitors, since 2018. Practising law over the last decade has highlighted the importance of good governance and the rule of law globally, which is why I was pleased to be appointed as an Advisory Board member of charity, Laws.Africa in 2021. As there is no free source of up-to-date legislation in most African countries, its mission is to enable governments to provide access to reliable digital legislation to empower local people.
Eilidh Anderson | Kingswood Group
Eilidh is an Investment Manager at Kingswood Group with 8 years’ industry experience and a particular interest in ESG and impact investing.
She has a background in research and portfolio management including both direct equities and funds. She started her career in 2013 at Charles Stanley and worked her way up through a variety of roles while completing the requisite qualifications.
After noticing the distinct lack of women in investment and executive positions, Eilidh became a member of Charles Stanley’s Innovation Through Inclusion Committee at its foundation in 2016 and worked with members to sign the firm up to the Women in Finance Charter and improve the parental leave policy to name a few. At Kingswood, she is continuing this work as a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. In order to increase representation in the wider financial services industry, Eilidh is also a member of the Social Inclusion working group for CFA UK’s Inclusion & Diversity Committee and a member of the Future Leaders Shadow Board at Women in Banking and Finance. Most recently, she has volunteered with the Impact Investing Institute in increase accessibility.
Eilidh was born and raised in Scotland and moved to London in 2014 to pursue her career. She graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2012 with a Master of Arts (MA) in Psychology. Beyond the office Eilidh enjoys travel, photography, writing and competitive sport. She is a formal national volleyball player having played the sport for 10 years and received a prestigious Blue upon graduation from university in honour of her sporting success. Eilidh was also team captain, EUVC secretary and is a qualified volleyball coach and referee.
Chloe Selvey | HSBC
Chloe works in a global strategic role at HSBC, focused on client collaboration between different parts of the bank.
Prior to this, having joined on the graduate scheme she progressed rapidly to become the youngest Investment Counsellor in HSBC’s UK Private Bank, providing investment advice to wealthy individuals. During that time Chloe also became CFA qualified, as well as completing her PCIAM and IAD Wealth Management exams. She is also the co-chair of the Private Bank UK Balance committee, an employee network striving for gender equality.
Meaghan Hayden | PwC
Meaghan is an experienced Manager within PwC’s Asset & Wealth Management (AWM) practice.
With over 7 years of experience, Meaghan leads teams to deliver large-scale transformational change across market leading industry players. With experience spanning both traditional and alternative asset classes, Meaghan typically delivers large-scale technology enabled Operating Model change programmes for market leading industry participants.
Since joining PwC as one of the firm’s first apprentices, Meaghan has championed PwC’s Early Year’s Schemes. She is passionate about promoting less traditional routes into Investment Management to increase social mobility and make workplaces more diverse. Meaghan supported the evolution of PwC’s apprenticeship scheme, with the development of an ‘accelerated pathway’ for talented apprentices to fast track through PwC’s graduate programme following the completion of their apprenticeship.
Abbie Conneely | WTW
Like many others in insurance, I fell into the industry.
Having finished my degree in 2015, I Googled ‘careers with a geography degree’ and found the Marsh Graduate Scheme. Starting as a Client Executive, I seized my opportunities to grow professionally, viewing the industry from the top down - selected for an Executive Assistant placement for Joe Grogan and then taking a secondment to Burberry.
Now at WTW, and having worked in various roles in my six years in insurance, I appreciate the necessity to promote I&D at every opportunity. I constantly strive to attract and reach new talent by organising events, mentoring and writing blogs for the NGIN Committee and the CII Outreach team.
Nadia Kruger | PwC
After graduating from the University of Pretoria with an Honours degree in Accounting Sciences I started my career back in South Africa with KPMG, working in external audit for a number of years before moving to London. Shortly after moving I realised it was time to start a new journey into Financial Services Advisory, this is when I joined PwC.
For the past three years I’ve been helping my clients successfully navigate technical change as part of transformation, implementation and remediation programmes, within Insurance. I have led and managed large teams through complex programmes by leaning on the authentic professional relationships I’ve built. Using my extensive network enables me to deliver quality and excellence to my clients whilst also providing valuable industry insights. This, together with investing, coaching and mentoring my core delivery teams have been the key factors to success in my career.
Having met amazing people who have mentored and coached makes me passionate about ‘paying it forward’ to the next generation. Anyone who has met me knows that I have an enormous amount of positive energy. I use this to empower others with an attitude and mindset which enables them to bring their true authentic selves to work each day
Growing up in a very diverse culture has fueled my passion for Diversity and Inclusion. I am an advocate for challenging the status quo to generate positive change. I empower others to bring their true authentic selves to work. Using my role as Wellbeing lead for my business unit I facilitate leadership panels speaking on the impact of bias around gender, race and disabilities on mental health and work performance.
Aneesa Sharif | PwC
Since September 2016 I have been working in the PwC insurance audit practice. My focus has been on global insurance clients across both general and life insurance.
During my first two years at PwC, I split my time between the Insurance and the Stakeholder Assurance team within Asset Wealth Management. A turning point in my career came in 2019 when, having completed a particularly difficult insurance audit, I was given the opportunity to join the Stakeholder Assurance team within PwC. I decided to stay with the Insurance practice, despite knowing how challenging the work would be. I was keen to build on my experience and felt I had a clear idea of my strengths and how to build on them. I’ve felt the impact of my progress as my clients have fed back their appreciation for my ability to overcome challenges and deliver high quality work.
I’ve always understood the importance of taking every opportunity to build on my experience as well as the importance of knowledge sharing and collaboration. I’ve acted on this by leading regularly scheduled meetings for all Managers in the Insurance team. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss key technical issues and hot topics in the market; relating to both Lloyd’s of London Syndicates and the wider general insurance market.
Besides client work, I am devoted to the wellbeing of the teams I work with and have been working to break the stigma around mental health. One of the initiatives I implemented across my projects has been to introduce a 'team charter' setting out team behaviors. Individuals are encouraged to share their commitment to the team and are empowered to commit to certain boundaries for themselves.
I’m also passionate about Diversity & Inclusion. Knowing how important this is, I have led conversations, sharing my own experiences by opening up and showing vulnerability and encouraging regular discussions within my teams. In turn, I have built trust within my team, where we communicate openly about issues which may affect individuals in the workplace and work flexibly to support those from different experiences.
One of the things I’m most proud of is that I’ve been able to create a comfortable and safe working environment which in turn adds to the levels of collaboration on my team, delivering high quality audits for global insurance clients. Being told by team members that they want to continue working on my teams is fulfilling and makes me proud of all I have achieved.
Lastly, and perhaps the most rewarding and fulfilling job is my role as coach to 4 junior members of our audit practice. I support them throughout the year, but more prominently through our busy season which can be an adjustment for those who have just graduated from university or have not worked in a similar role before. This support may simply mean being there for a chat over a coffee, or guiding them to the appropriate PwC resources to help them with any hurdles they may face. I have continued this role even as those I have coached have left PwC and they continue to look to me for mentorship and professional advice.
Angel Zhou | Warwick Business School
I was a co-founded Shanghai Green Life Agri-tech Co - the first organic product company in China.
In a challenging market, opened 10 branches within three years and secured a US$1 million investment from Japan NIS Group. As a result, business now has 30 branches in China and has expanded overseas to Japan, increasing annual revenue to US$1.5 million.
Headhunted to be Secretary General for Guqin Culture Foundation China. Raised US$75,000 sponsorship from Bank of Beijing and led a further round of financing to secure US$18 million using Guqin as an investment tool. This enabled the foundation to underwrite the National Youth Guqin Culture Event 2012, enabling young people to be empowered through cultural identity.
Worked for Willis Towers Watson as a head of business development - China Global Practice, Increased total revenue in Chinese business by 90%, steered 38 significant government owned Chinese enterprises to follow. Strategic support alignment with Economic and Commercial Counselor's Office of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Middle East.
Polo ambassador - First female polo player in China and winner of the first female Polo Tournament, Beijing 2010. Recruited, trained, and managed own polo team called ‘Phoenix Women Polo Team’ and led an overseas tour from China to the USA and UAE to promote the polo culture from China.
In my spare time, I enjoy travel, active outdoor sports and love life in general! As an animal lover, if my dog allows me, during weekends I can be found in the stables horse riding.
When I was young, thanks to my parents encouragement I learned calligraphy, painting and playing the piano - these experiences have played a key role in developing my focus, diligence and enthusiasm – now some of my key values together with positive outlook and curiosity.
Anya White
I joined r10 as a Marketing intern, with little prior knowledge but an interest to learn and develop.
Working with the wider r10 team, I gained understanding and knowledge from those around me, while always looking for opportunities to help and learn. Over the first few months, I taught myself many new skills and programmes and took courses to increase and develop my knowledge in the marketing space. I was able to offer ideas and helped develop the marketing capabilities and deliverables, allowing us to become a defined service that we could offer to clients. I have designed and implemented new processes to allow the marketing department to produce expert and informative material and content on an ongoing basis.
Through 2020 I scoped, planned, led and delivered a full company-wide rebrand to clearly define the r10 vision and create a brand for the future. This included a new website that experienced a 200% increase in engagement. I delivered a simple yet effective solution, designed to simplify our message while also providing processes and documentation that supported the knowledge and expertise of our team.
I’m keen to learn and develop my London Market knowledge and in the last four months I’ve completed several exams from the Chartered Insurance Institute, Netcall’s Low-code training programme, and Business Analysis training. These have allowed me to define my own career development plan. Through speaking with colleagues, and doing my own research, I have identified Business Analysis as my next challenge, and am actively working to develop my key skills and understanding to transition into this role, as it’s a shift from my current responsibilities.
Yan Kong | PwC
My career in financial services is founded on my ability to connect business insight with the right technology in order to provide robust, transformative solutions that deliver real value and significantly enhance customer experience.
As a Chinese, after graduating from East China University of Science and Technology, I decided to pursue a further degree in the UK at Sheffield University to broaden my worldview, which I believed would help me prepare for life in a global society. I then spent 2 years as a software development QA and BA in China. I soon decided to specialise within professional services and the world of data, but it was analytics and its power to make a difference that really got me excited. This drove me to complete a further study on this topic at Warwick University and join the PwC data analytics graduate scheme after graduation 5 years ago.
Over the last two years my focus has been within the insurance sector and I have successfully delivered complex technology solutions to insurance clients, changing the status-quo in terms of how they serve their customers through improvements to their policy administration platform.
I’m fiercely passionate about enabling people to bring their best selves to work every day and I strongly believe a winning team is the key to success. Therefore, with successful delivery being my core goal, I also wear multiple hats where I can invest in my teams and the client through knowledge transfer and mentoring high performing, versatile teams across multiple geographies.
Alongside my delivery role it has been very important for me to promote and actively make a difference within Diversity and Inclusiveness (D&I) initiatives, particularly regarding cultural awareness. Having come from a Chinese background, it is important for me to break down the barriers and perceptions and create a platform for an integrated working environment. I have played an active role in supporting our Technology, Data & Analytics (TDA) apprentice group and supporting the technology careers of many team members, by delivering coaching and training sessions covering the insurance industry, digital technologies and agile delivery methodologies. I have also used my Chinese background to assist with key bids for PwC outside of my own subject and sector areas by helping translate important documents and aid the bid team in understanding how to pitch to Chinese clients. I have done all of this alongside my client delivery work.
Outside of my work life I am passionate about travel, fitness, and family.