How did your career start?
I studied accounting and finance at Lancaster University, and during that time I completed a summer internship programme at EY, which led to a job offer. In September 2011, I joined its transaction advisory services team in Manchester. Rather than audit, I worked in restructuring and trained as a chartered accountant.
The role was very interesting; it involved a lot of management interaction during the wind-down of a business. Although I was a bank appointee, there was a natural tension I had to navigate through. The hours were demanding – I had to be on call for difficult and at times stressful situations. If a business is going to run out of cash, you cannot hold off for a week – you don’t have the luxury of time.
Then into industry?
After I qualified, EY promoted me to executive and then to manager. But I didn’t want to become too specialised, so I joined the Co-op retail group’s ‘transformation team’, working on internal logistics projects. We developed business cases that went to the investment committee for sign-off. What was interesting for me was that I worked directly with the business and saw projects through to implementation.
After six months, a former colleague from EY who had joined NorthEdge invited me to join its portfolio team. I honestly hadn’t considered private equity before, but opportunities like that don’t come up too often. I was cautious about how it would look on my CV, moving from job to job so quickly, but it was a tremendous opportunity. It was also a great feeling to be asked.
What is your role now?
I joined NorthEdge in March 2018 as an investment manager, and was promoted to investment director in August last year. Because of COVID-19 and the changing dynamics and workload, my time has been consumed by portfolio matters, rather than new business opportunities. I have one non-executive board seat and two observer roles.
In November 2020, I started supporting new business opportunities, working on diligence and internal investment reports. My first deal should be completing very shortly.
There are technical bits to learn, but more than 80% of what we do is around people and influence. Beyond that, our responsibility in portfolio is to deliver a value creation plan and exit a business, having made higher multiples and better outcomes. You can plan for scenarios, but you can’t legislate for everything. In portfolio, I am building up a bank of experience in delivering successful exits. I can bring all that learning and exposure to the front end and then add the technical aspects.
How does your previous experience help at NorthEdge?
My role at the Co-op really gave me a feel for the stakeholder piece. Management teams run a business day to day, and my role is to challenge and direct in a way that drives and delivers value. At the Co-op, interacting with and influencing both senior and junior people required a skill and level of emotional intelligence that I developed there. I was then able to apply the experience of direct interaction at NorthEdge. My time at EY taught me how to be cautious when things are not going smoothly. I also learned a lot around cash management at EY, which has been helpful in the past year.
How important is diversity?
I’m involved with our firm’s diversity and inclusion process. One element is bringing in more females, but it’s broader than that. There are different paths to a career in private equity and we are always looking to attract more diverse talent. There’s an assumption that you need to have done deals to join a private equity firm, but my experience disproves that.
What are your future ambitions?
I want to have experience of a deal from start to finish. That will make my time in private equity feel more complete. The cycle of successfully doing a deal and exiting, and the learning that would bring over four or five years, is my next ambition.
This year has been difficult because of the reactive nature of everything, but I can honestly say I really enjoy private equity. It’s hard, but the variety, accountability and responsibility are all there.
