By profession, I am an ICAEW Chartered Accountant working as a Business Restructuring Services Senior Consultant at PwC.
Through my role, I have worked on a number of high-profile insolvencies, including the UK’s largest ever trading insolvency. I worked as part of the team who supported the Official Receiver to deliver continuity of key public services across hospitals, schools, prisons, transport networks and military bases nationwide and transfer over 80% of approximately 18,000 employees to new roles. As a result, we were recognised alongside The Insolvency Service for our work at the Turnaround, Restructuring and Insolvency awards in November 2018.
Outside of client work, I contribute to driving positive cultural change through proactively advocating for diversity, inclusion and wellbeing within both PwC and the ICAEW through my roles on the PwC D&I Council, the Multicultural Business Network steering committee, as an ICAEW Diversity Champion and a blogger for the wellbeing charity, CABA. I was also trained by Google to become an #IamRemarkable facilitator which enables me to run sessions with female colleagues from Associate to Director level to encourage them to promote themselves in the workplace.
As part of my mission to educate, empower and inspire, I spearheaded the creation of New Gen Accountants (NGA), a non-profit organisation which provides advice and continued support to more than 200 individuals in the UK who are pursuing accountancy as a career. I led NGA’s first event #MyAccountancyJourney in which 100% of attendees stated they left the event feeling empowered to take action within their own careers. I also ran the #MyAccountancyJourney social media campaign which profiled accountants from a BAME background in an aim to empower more ethnic minorities to consider accountancy as a career. The campaign received more than 500 likes on Instagram and 7,000 impressions on Twitter. As a result of the impact New Gen Accountants has made in the accounting industry, the ICAEW invited myself and several of the NGA team members to attend the signing of the Social Mobility pledge and meet with Justine Greening MP to discuss our future plans. I am now encouraging accountants to be more forward thinking in their roles by considering how they can use emerging technologies to be more efficient.
After being awarded a first class honours in BSc Business and Management, I remain an active alumni member of Aston Business School and mentor students via the Aston Professional Mentoring Scheme. Following a number of 1 to 1 interview skills sessions, my most recent mentee was able to secure a placement at one of the Top 25 UK undergraduate employers, despite it being the first time he had interviewed for a corporate role.
Having studied abroad at the University of Florida, undertaken a secondment at the PwC Middle East firm and volunteered in Brazil and Kenya, I now consider myself to be a global citizen who is endlessly giving back, connecting people and empowering those around me.