Laura is an Executive Assistant with 15+ years’ experience gained across the public, private and third sectors.

A graduate of Imperial College London, Laura’s EA career started at Haringey Council before she moved on to the charity World Villages for Children, next to Cancer Research UK and then to Accenture, where she is currently in her ninth year with the company.

She provides all aspects of EA support to the UKI Products Business Lead – a Senior Managing Director – along with two other MDs across Consumer Goods and Life Sciences clients.

In addition to the daily job requirements, Laura finds time to add value to the wider EA community. She aims to lead by example and find opportunities outside her core role. She was instrumental in developing and delivering EA training days held at Accenture UK & Ireland offices (London, Manchester, Newcastle and Dublin) to inform and educate the EA community across a range of topics. The events brought over 150 EAs together and delivered unified sessions across each site and helped Laura build her networks across the entire EA UKI Community.

With community being so important to Laura, she is also part of a small team who organise and encourage networking across the London EA teams to bring otherwise siloed areas together and to encourage face to face interactions to counteract the e-mail heavy culture.

Another added responsibility Laura has taken on – with great enthusiasm – being made a mentor to acquisition EAs, to guide them through systems and processes once acquired by Accenture. All these events feed into Laura’s passion for growing her networks, not just with EAs but also including developing deep working relations across many teams including: marketing, finance, HR, customer services, catering, facilities, local tech support and the reception team – to name but a few! Having the right contacts allows for faster solutions and the ability to deliver greater value in the EA role. The importance of collaboration and wide reaching networks are self evident so this is something she works hard to continue developing.

Laura is a positive role model within the community who leads by example. She tries to inspire others in the way she acts and is always happy to share best-practice ideas with peers. She aims to be a positive influence and if she sees an opportunity to improve a process or system, she will then pursue the necessary steps to implement the change and make it happen. Laura has made several suggestions around making Accenture a more sustainable and responsible company, and more than one of these has been implemented.

For two years Laura was the departmental Pride Lead, and successfully increased Ally numbers as well as engagement of LGBT+ issues across the workplace. This again provided an opportunity to build further networks across every department at Accenture, due to regular Pride Network meetings and events.

Laura’s proudest achievement during her time at Accenture has been interviewing against strong internal competition and gaining promotion. This was based on her self-increased responsibilities and also Laura having developed and grown in the role since joining in 2012 and now operating at a more advanced level, having sought out her own opportunities for growth and development in addition to her EA role.