I wanted my career to make a difference
Believe it or not, I never set out to have a career in HR, but I knew I wanted to make a difference and find a path that gave me the opportunity to constantly stretch me and be creative. After successfully completing my English degree at the University of Hertfordshire, I decided to focus on having my family first with my career coming after. When the children were very young, I wanted time and location flexibility and over the years set up two very different companies that I could run from homer – real estate and weddings! They were both really successful, but as the children reached school age I decided to sell up and develop an external career. After a brief stint selling company cars, I secured my first HR role at a US tech company called 3Com as an HR Admin.
I was fortunate to work for some amazing managers, who gave me a broad range of opportunities and as a consequence I gradually worked my way through the various roles in HR, including HR Operations Manager and then Compensation and Benefits Manager for EMEA. As part of my various roles, I travelled to the US, Taiwan, Singapore, I was also HR Lead for Southern Europe. Every time an opportunity was presented to me, I said “yes”, and this allowed me to grow and progress.
When HP acquired 3Com in 2009, I was invited across, so I embraced it and have loved the experience. I’ve gone from strength to strength, always having great managers to encourage and support me. This, combined with the breadth of knowledge all the bizarre experiences I’ve had really helped me progress. I never had a set path, but when an opportunity arose, I always said “yes, tell me more” and that’s something which has really helped me – and helped me to become the HR Director for Northwest Europe (NWE) at HP Inc.
There’s no particular ‘stand out’ achievement
I don’t like to look back at my career and say one particular achievement means more than another. My career success can be attributed to an amalgamation of all my successes over the years.
