Welcome to Insights from Leaders, with Lucy Carter at ⁠⁠⁠TenOpalSquare.co.uk⁠⁠⁠.  

Hear my honest and frank conversations with leaders from accountancy and wider professional services firms, sharing their path to leadership and how they continue to thrive.  Through listening, you'll find there's lots you'll be able to relate to your journey into leadership, but also gain advice and top tips to help you on your way too.

In this episode gain insights into leadership and how to navigate the path to leadership with Simon Collier who's a Partner at PA and currently their interim Global Head of Health and Life Sciences. 

Before joining PA Simon held roles at IBM and EY in which he developed his leadership skills. Over the last 20 years he's worked with clients to support complex programme management, organisation and process design, and performance improvement throughout the UK and US. He believes purpose is everything, and is highly motivated by the work he and his teams are delivering that save lives.  Simon was also a founding member of PA's Women in Leadership programme, which aligns with his belief that everyone should have an equal opportunity to fulfil their potential.

"You don't get to Director or Partner by just doing a good job - you've really got to think about how you're going to grow your own business within a business."

"To become a leader...I needed to develop myself as an individual...working out why I got on so well with some people and not as well with others, I realised it was as much about me as it was about other people...acting peer to peer came quickly, but understanding why, it took me a long time to get there."

Top Tip: Know why you want to be a leader and what's important to you - and think through how you bring the best of yourself to being a leader.