Coming from a working class and part-time carer background, Pam had little connection to accountancy.
After securing and completing 4 prestigious internships across one summer, Pam joined PwC in 2016 and passed all 15 chartered accountancy exams first time. She became one of the highest ranked graduates in her cohort nationally, developing a strong specialism in internal audit. Pam’s unique work experience across journalism and accounting allows her to explain complex, technical items in a readable way to senior executives.
Recently, she led a set of internal audit reviews at several major universities around the submission of their data to the regulator. This is a high profile area for universities, which can garner significant negative press attention if universities are found to submit misleading information to league tables. Pam’s reviews raised several significant findings for board audit committees. In one instance, due to the nature and severity of findings she raised, she was asked to perform a follow-up review in the next academic year to provide assurance to the board around progress made. Pam’s reviews provided a platform to bring these issues to the agenda of many university boards, and became a junior subject matter expert at PwC in this niche.
There was no diversity and inclusion network when Pam joined PwC in Manchester. To solve this, she co-founded and chaired the ‘Cultural Difference’ network to attract and retain diverse staff, organising high profile events and the PwC Diversity Mentoring Scheme for university students.
Pam has consistently worked hard to facilitate diversity and inclusion. From the age of 14 she began working for Voice 21 Magazine – written by students from under-privileged or under-represented backgrounds, with a readership of around 10,000 young people. Pam was the editor for 2 years – interviewing celebrities, liaising with PR firms to successfully grow the brand, and mentoring junior staff, before going on to write for Channel 4, The Guardian and The Independent.
Pam was recently approached by the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW) to be one of their ‘diversity champions’, applying knowledge gained from her experience. She spoke at their 2019 Executive Board meeting and is currently working with them to attract and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds.