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I couldn't wait to leave school with my 3 GCSEs in my hand and no idea of what to do next. All I knew was that I didn't want to go onto college.  I found my first office job working as a clerk for an insurance brokers but this was quite short lived when I became pregnant with my son. I was unable to return to the same job and in turn worked several different sales and customer service roles as the hours suited my home life. However, I decided that I wanted to have a career, support my son and be a role model. So this meant going to college after all, in the evenings whilst working part-time. From here I went on to complete a full-time Business Studies course which led to my first stint at university. I suffered terribly with imposter syndrome at the time and didn't think I was capable of completing a degree but I did, and after a year out I went back and spent another 2 years completing a post-graduate diploma. 

 

This spurred me on to believe that I could have a chosen career in Human Resources. I was fired up with a passion to work with people, armed with not one but two related qualifications and a CIPD certification. However, I stumbled for 18 months, repeatedly being told that I was over-qualified with no relevant experience. This was both frustrating and disheartening but I persevered, I'd worked too hard to take no for an answer! Finally I managed to persuade a HR Director to take me on as a HR Administrator, despite his concerns that I would be bored within 6 months and guess what, I was! However, I had my foot in the door. I had to beg and be creative in getting onto the next rung of the HR ladder, with the same HR Director, and finally got promoted to HR Officer. From there on in, I managed to move onto HR Manager, HR Business Partner, Senior HR Business Partner, HR Director, Head of Talent & Engagement and business owner. There were other challenges along the way - you haven't worked in X industry, you haven't managed a team before, you haven't managed a big team before, etc. but I kept on pushing, not taking no for an answer and taking opportunities to continuously learn and develop.

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Looking back I recognise a pattern of optimism, a growth mindset, perseverance, personal resilience and having a clear career goal and strategy. I also had help from some amazing mentors and coaches along the way. Now I want to help other professional women (and men) tap into their full potential and have greater personal satisfaction and professional success, after all - we can achieve anything we set our mind to.