I've had a long and slightly various career that I see as a combination of lessons, passions and necessity.
As a young girl I didn't have a definitive career aspiration, I did however say I wanted to be a nurse, a singer, a hairdresser, a dancer and even a mermaid. All of this was definitely based on what I'd seen on the telly and probably idolised. At school, (back in the 90s) I loved history and music, I was a member of the choir, had piano, singing, violin and recorder lessons, (but didn't everyone). I also did ballet, tap, gym and stage dancing, which I enjoyed but I didn't think of it as a career. When it came to my A'levels I still really enjoyed music and had decided that I was going to take a gap year after finishing and try and work for a record company as a receptionist or something similar and earn £16,000 a year as I'd seen some jobs advertised. Although I did take a gap year I didn't secure a job within the music industry, I had no work experience apart from retail and no idea how to apply to get noticed for what I thought at the time was my dream job. So my retail experience essentially pushed me down the route of front facing/customer service roles and I ended up working for the Woolwich building society as a cashier, then a customer service agent for an annuities/pension company, a receptionist at BMW, a ticket sales agent at ticket master and then started university and went back to retail.
At Uni I studied Music and Media Management and got a 2:2. I had a real passion for music and really wanted to sing, but my mum was adamant that I had to go to Uni, so I decided to continue down the music route. There I co-founded the Urban Music Society and developed a love for event planning. Now don't get me wrong the events weren't necessarily well attended but I liked the project management of it and putting creative ideas together to realise an outcome. Whilst most of these events were actually flops, bar maybe two, the thing I learned here was that it takes a village. Trying to be a solo woman warrior would take an excruciatingly long time for minimal results, there are people who are skilled in different areas who can help get the job done so delegate, delegate, delegate.
While I was at Uni I worked part time as a customer service advisor for Islington Councils Housing Benefits after having worked in retail during my 1st and 2nd year. I stayed within the public sector moving to different boroughs for the next 13 years and never really realised the goal of working in the music industry. However I was able to explore different skills, including event management, marketing and campaign management. having organised corporate and community events including a series of activities during the 2012 olympic games and managing Africa on the Square at Trafalgar Square for 20,000 people.
My transition into the private sector was helped by my marketing and campaign management, as I was required to develop a strong understanding of different demographics, how they think, what they need, how they like to be communicated with and areas they were excluded. This to me felt like an obvious and natural progression to diversity and inclusion. However working in the private sector was definitely a change I had to get used to, as some of
the main drivers were profit and commerciality, where as the public sector was more focused on serving people, implementing reform and improving living standards. This mindset shift meant I had to learn new skills like understanding consumer and business behaviour and how that correlates with fair processes and policies internally and externally, which hasn't always been easy but I have throughly enjoyed. By doing this I have been able to see gaps in the support and knowledge for different communities and how this has affected progression, finances, confidence involvement, and so much more.
AmplifiedKin was born out of the desire to impact changed based on everything I have learnt in my career so far, and to empower people to be able take ownership of their careers by being armed with the skills to impact the systems that have previously excluded. This is definitely not the end of my career but my journey to get here was born out of what I didn't see not what I did see. I now think of career in terms of legacy, and personal and societal impact and am excited for this next phase.