Annual Report 2018: Progression coaches transcript

Ed Stacey

What has having a sponsor meant for you both, on a personal level but also on a career?

Tilly Harries

Having a sponsor for me, on a personal level it’s really helped me think about what I bring to the table.  And what my challenges are, so certainly after coming back from my 2nd maternity leave I was on a real downer and my mum was also very ill, who was my main caregiver.  And I honestly I felt like giving up work and having a sponsor really helped me think about actually, I really enjoy work and both yourself and Shirley really helped in opening up your individual networks to me.  And I think that’s the key difference between a mentor and an active sponsor.

Laura Nadel

One of the things I’ve found really helpful, because Ed is my sponsor was actually that you shared your personal development plan with me so that helped me understand that everybody has their own very individual challenges to work on and so the fact that you was so open and sharing in that initial phase of the programme, I think gave me the confidence to say right I’m just going to be really honest and really reflect on what my challenges are, and there’s no difficulty in sharing them back to you because you shared yours with me.

Ed

I guess from my perspective, the benefits of sponsorship have been to see some fantastically talented people come through that I think might have faced some obstacles without that sponsorship.  But also, that there’s quite a lot I can learn, so from the challenges that other people face it may be that even though I’m a partner, I will face those challenges in a different way in years to come and actually learn a lot, on almost a reverse sponsor basis from the people I’ve worked with.

Laura

So one thing I really remember is talking about my disability, that I could talk about that in the process and it could be a really positive thing.  Whereas for me actually it was something I wouldn’t of brought up by myself and once I was able to talk to the panel about my disability I think it gave them a real insight into me as a person, and it really helped me unlock that.  Overall, I think having a sponsor made the promotion process a hundred times easier.

Tilly

Yeah, I would definitely echo that from my perspective as well.

Laura

I think as well that there is no idea of what good looks like at PwC, you can have a disability, you can be a women, you can be from an ethnic minority, you can be in the regions… it doesn’t matter.  PwC really values contribution, and some people sort of talk the talk and don’t walk the walk on it, but from my experience are the people I work with and those that have been promoted around me. I can see that actually there is opportunity there for anybody who’s willing to do a good job.  And that sort of comes to fruition and the sponsorship programme really supports that as well.