- What has your career journey been like so far?
Typical in some ways and atypical in others! I went from School to University and straight into a graduate job on a training contract with one of the World’s biggest financial services firms. I qualified there as a Chartered Accountant and after a few years moved into Industry. Then atypically, I took a 7-year career break to start a family and focus on raising my children. I did do lots of voluntary work in that time (accounts and payroll for local organisations, etc) but my primary focus was my family. I only went back into work once both my children started full time school. I worked part time initially until it suited us as a family for me to go back to full time working.
- What attracted you to working for a housing association?
My first step into the Housing sector was after my career break– they were a sector that offered flexibility and family friendly policies which is what I was looking for in my first job after becoming a mother. I also wanted to work somewhere where the work I did made a positive impact to society rather than just make money for people. Social Housing ticked all boxes. So much so, that I convinced my husband to leave the manufacturing sector and join a RSL too!
- Any career highlights you’d like to celebrate?
I then went on to become the Financial Accountant for UK/Ireland at Revlon UK. In my first few months there, I was being a boring accountant and reading through old pension investment reports I’d found in my office and noted something on the back page about tax deductions. I did some digging and called lots of pension investors to understand what it meant and over the space of 6 months, managed to reclaim more than £300,000 in wrongly deducted tax for the Company and its pension scheme. The takeaway from this was to always be inquisitive and investigate things that don’t make sense, till they make sense!
I was over the moon when I got selected for the American Express Leadership Programme in 2023 and it was such an incredible experience – having lunch at the House of Lords and hanging out with the American Ambassador at her residence in Regents Park was a pinch me moment.
And last but not least, becoming the Corporate Director of Central Services at CCHA is a massive career highlight– a real sense of achievement but also the realisation of being valued for my contribution by my colleagues, peers and Board. I think all the lovely emails and comments I got before applying and ever since from so many people were a real happy highlight for me.
- What do you enjoy most about working for CCHA?
I love working at CCHA. I love that I am valued for what I can do and for being me. I work with a great bunch of caring people who all want to make a difference too. Every day if different and I get a chance to make a positive impact in so many areas. I am also the Chair of the Board for our Diversity projects which means I’m not only responsible for finance/IT/Procurement related decisions at CCHA, but instrumental for long lasting positive change in increasing diversity across the Housing sector in Wales and the landscape of leadership beyond the Housing sector too. What’s not to enjoy?