Having studied Business Management with Communications at the University of Birmingham, my first appointment was with a local family owned business in Shrewsbury. It was a great opportunity to really cut my teeth and jump into the real world of work, starting as the Group Communications Executive I was exposed to the whole business and learnt from the ground up.

I knew that long term there was limited career progression and needed to look further afield, I didn’t think I’d be moving 160 miles away but that was where my next opportunity lay, at Tesco head office in Welwyn Garden City. It was a no brainer really, a household name and a great opportunity for personal and career development. I upped sticks and moved South, which if I’m honest was a tough decision especially leaving my beloved horse, friends and family.

My new role as Digital Communications Executive within the People team was a baptism of fire. My immediate colleagues and team were super supportive and I was up and running in no time and working on strategic projects that impacted the wider business. I loved working to develop brand advocacy across many different digital channels and the creativity, passion and drive of those I worked with was infectious. I established great working relationships across our function and group communication teams which helped deliver a robust recruitment content strategy to help share current narrative to potential candidates globally. I’m most proud of the work I did for the UK careers website last year. It definitely is the people that make the business and I have had the privilege to work with colleagues that have inspired me to push boundaries, challenge my thinking and drive my own career development further.

I guess it’s when you are not looking that something comes along and that’s what happened to me. I’d been in my role for a year when an opportunity for a 12 month secondment with One Stop (a subsidiary of Tesco) was advertised internally. I had the sponsorship from my manager who was really supportive and thought it would be a great opportunity to stretch myself and step up into a management role within my field of expertise - I applied.

So here I am six months later, I moved back to Shropshire and work flexibly between here and our offices in Walsall. I’ve taken all the knowledge and experience gained at Tesco with me, learnt and developed a whole new set of skills and really immerged myself and got under the skin of the convenience market.