WorkLife Stories

Trigger warning: cancer.

In our latest podcast, Addy talks to Anna about her diagnosis of bowel cancer in 2019 and the following 5 years of treatment and recovery, both physically and emotionally. She talks about how she found out she had cancer, working throughout treatment (alongside lockdown and home-schooling) and how her family has coped. She offers her advice to anyone suffering with cancer or for those with friends, family or colleagues anything similar.

Trigger warning for baby and pregnancy loss, miscarriage and still birth.

Daria courageously and openly talks to us about the devastating experience of losing her baby girl at full term. She recounts how she slowly began to heal, grieve and move forward.

She tells us about her 3 daughters and how she has built a community group at the Bank of England to support others going through fertility, loss and pregnancy difficulties.  Trigger warning for baby and pregnancy loss, miscarriage and still birth.

Daria courageously and openly talks to us about the devastating experience of losing her baby girl at full term. She recounts how she slowly began to heal, grieve and move forward. She tells us about her 3 daughters and how she has built a community group at the Bank of England to support others going through fertility, loss and pregnancy difficulties.

Supportive resources:

1) Dad Still Standing podcast: dadstillstanding.com

A resource for bereaved fathers, close relatives and families that want to understand the partner perspective around baby loss.

2) Petals: petalscharity.org

Petals is a baby loss counselling service supporting parents who experience mental health issues as a result of bereavement, trauma or loss related to pregnancy.

3) Tommy’s: tommys.org

A leading pregnancy and baby charity with an aim of making pregnancy and birth safe for everyone.

We talk to Jenn Barnett and Jemima Ankuma from Grant Thornton’s Diversity and Inclusion team about all things social mobility. They explain how they ensure that people of lower socio-economic backgrounds can join, progress and thrive at the firm - and the profession more broadly - and why social mobility is also a very personal passion for each of them too.

Laura Walker and Chloe Fletcher, who have shared senior finance roles at Asda, talk to Anna all about their experience of job sharing, the practical considerations

We talk to Stonewall Changemaker of the Year 2022 Kayus Fernander about his career at Citi; his journey from being a private, young, black, gay junior within the bank, through to being an open, confident and active participant in and advocate of inclusion groups, initiatives and discussions. He talks about diversity groups, company culture, intersectionality and how we can be better colleagues and managers in the workplace.

Psychologist and therapeutic coach Kyle Davies talks to us about his own experience of anxiety and depression as a young adult, the contributing factors and the natural tendency to mask and avoid situations which exacerbated it. He brings his professional expertise to the conversation, exploring his approach to therapeutic coaching, how we can build our own resilience and listen to our bodies' indicators during life's stresses.  

Psychologist and therapeutic coach Kyle Davies talks to us about his own experience of anxiety and depression as a young adult, the contributing factors and the natural tendency to mask and avoid situations which exacerbated it. He brings his professional expertise to the conversation, exploring his approach to therapeutic coaching, how we can build our own resilience and listen to our bodies' indicators during life's stresses.  

In this episode of WorkLife Stories, legal senior associate Rachel Dean tells us about her career so far, including how she started out and her move from private practice to an in-house role. She reveals the drivers for her decision to move, what she learnt from the experience and why she ultimately moved back to a law firm afterwards. She offers her advice for anyone considering a move in-house either by secondment or permanent role and how it can enrich your skills and experience.

In this episode, we talk to Jayne Ruff about her book entitled: Imperfect Parenting – Honest Stories from Global Parents in which she pens a chapter on balancing careers and family life. She talks about her own experiences of maternity leave, going back to work and the importance of personal values, honest emotions and flexible boundaries in our search for work life balance.

In this episode of WorkLife Stories, we talk to George Bullock and Russell Cook from Macquarie, the Australian head quartered, global financial services group. George and Russell have both been participants in Macquarie’s Pride Employee Network Group’s Reverse Mentoring Scheme and are now members of the steering group that runs it. They talk about their own experiences of reverse mentoring, how they have grown the popular scheme, the importance of active allyship, mentoring conversation frameworks and guidance and the need to embed learnings into day to day working life.