Diverse thinking is key to team success

Both inside and outside of your day to day role, you can get involved in something that really interests you - charity, sports, diversity & inclusion. You can do so much that you didn’t expect you could do, and this is true no matter what you do at PwC.

My first experience of the firm was as a summer intern during university whilst studying Accounting & Finance. Upon completion of my degree I officially joined the firm as a graduate. Over four years have passed and I’m still loving every moment. I currently work in the Nexus team as a Senior Associate within the Distributed Delivery Model business unit in the Bradford Office. We centralise specific parts of the audit function and look at ways that we can standardise different parts of the audit process as a whole. In my role, I do a lot of things that are people related - from communications, to recruitment, to progression planning, to team engagement and rewards.

We’re still a young team - less than two years old. We’re continuously working on shaping the culture, building our own identity, improving our ways of working and ultimately we’re revolutionising the audit process. It’s hugely rewarding to be a part of. You challenge yourself to do things you never expected you could do. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved and I owe it to this role - it’s pushed me beyond my limits. I’ve learnt a lot about myself, my capabilities and especially how my skill set has evolved through so many different opportunities.

Something that I’m passionate about both inside and outside of work is diversity & inclusion. It’s important to me because so many of the best solutions are out of the box and unique. They’ve been brought about by people of different cultural experiences and environments coming together and sharing these different opinions or ideas - it’s what drives innovation. We’ve got such a huge advantage in this day and age to explore diversity of the world with technology and the way we move around. We should do what we can to make the most of it. There’s never a one size fits all solution for everyone but when it comes to working together, diverse thinking is what makes any team successful.

The firm encourages employees to give back and really make a difference in the community. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been given a platform by PwC to be a part of different diversity & inclusion programmes, including our female mentoring scheme, our diversity mentoring scheme and the LEAP charity.

The female mentoring scheme is for young women from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds where we pair female mentors with students, to create a safe environment for them to learn about different opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise know exist. I was a mentor when I first joined the program, nearly four years ago, and now I lead the programme. It’s been such an amazing journey to see how many females we’ve supported and how we’ve shown them that there’s so much that they can achieve.

Over the last few years I used to be a mentor for our diversity mentoring scheme but I have led it for the last year. This scheme is where we pair someone from a BAME background at university with a BAME mentor from PwC. We provide students with a role model they’re able to identify with and be more comfortable discussing certain topics with. This is also to provide BAME students the confidence to know that they can make it to wherever they want to go in the world regardless of their cultural background. The firm very much promotes that they want diversity in thought and background - the more diversity the firm has the stronger we will be as a firm, and as a mentor this is something I’m very proud to share openly with the mentees on the scheme.

LEAP is a social enterprise charity, connecting us with schools (specifically sixth form students). We run a business enterprise competition where students get to use their creativity and form a group or company with their classmates to sell a product to the public. I first got involved with this nearly three years ago, as PwC were asked to support by providing accounting lessons. I was initially giving accounting lessons and now I’m a board member, where I help organise and run the annual competition.

I’m so lucky to work at an organisation like PwC where I’m able to access so much at my fingertips. You learn about yourself, exceed your own expectations and continue to develop through the endless opportunities available to you - all whilst being able to support the community in ways that are important to you. The firm supports a variety of initiatives and for me that's really important. We spend a lot of time at work and working with a firm that recognises the importance of giving back and supporting diversity and inclusion makes me proud to be here - we really do have it all!