Why did you choose to do an ACA?

It certainly wasn’t planned. While studying management at Warwick Business School, I did two investment banking internships in London with Commerzbank and JP Morgan. I realised that I didn’t want to pursue that path and saw a career in the Big Four as one that would provide me with a broad range of opportunities in the future. I therefore joined PwC, in Leeds. During my graduate scheme, I was very privileged to rotate across various lines of service while building a huge network of friends who are now industry leaders in their fields. I spent 18 months in audit and 18 months across deals and consulting.

How did you make the move into private equity?

After qualifying, I spent a year in debt and capital advisory at PwC, before moving to Endless in October 2018. It was an opportunity to work for a leading transformational private equity house and see what life looked like post-transaction. I worked with the investment team on new deals, supporting with in-house financial due diligence and looking after a number of portfolio companies. I attended my first board meeting at the age of 25, which was really interesting and a steep learning curve. It felt really rewarding to be able to bring a diverse perspective to the boards, help them grow into new territories and watch some of them pivot in different directions during COVID.

After nearly four fantastic years at Endless, BGF approached me with an attractive new role split between execution and origination with a regional focus, which appealed to me. My strengths lay in networking with the local professional community and meeting local entrepreneurs and learning about what makes them tick.

What is your current role at BGF?

I joined BGF in May 2022. I spent the first two years mainly focusing on deal execution. More recently, I have started to spend a lot of time meeting new businesses, maintaining our relationships with the local business community, speaking on panels and leading our regional marketing strategy. I still look after one portfolio business – Arc Inspirations, which keeps me in tune with the current market and what opportunities and challenges the businesses are facing.

Is there any deal that stands out?

At Endless I was involved with our non-core carve-out of education materials distributors Findel Education from Studio Retail Group, in April 2021. Helping a division of a large listed firm carve itself out as a standalone business was very interesting and I really enjoyed working with the management team at Findel. It helped me realise that I wanted to work with businesses on their growth journey and help add value. The team genuinely cared about the environmental, social and governance impact the business was making, and I saw the difference it made having a strong management team with values. At BGF, the quality of the management team is one of our key focus areas and something I look for when I go out and meet new businesses.

What is your role in encouraging diversity?

At Endless, I set up the D&I committee where we benchmarked industry stats to ensure that the business had market-leading policies and culture in place to make the job more accessible to, and retain, diverse talent within the firm as well as our portfolio. Within BGF’s Diversity Action Group, I look after the female founders events initiative, which aims to make funding more accessible to female founders. We invest our time earlier on to help them on their investment readiness journey. It’s really rewarding to see progress made in some of the businesses we met a few years ago and stayed in touch with.

What are your ambitions?

I want to build a stable pipeline of new high-quality deals for the team across Yorkshire and the North East. Longer term, I want to become a role model for future generations that come from a diverse background like me. I speak at panels for the young professionals groups and put myself out there paying it forward. There were people throughout my career who inspired me and mentored me and I’d love to do the same for the future generations.