Hi, I'm Alison.

I was born in Newcastle but spent my early years in Lesotho in Africa, where my dad was a university lecturer. Known as ‘the Kingdom in the Sky’, Lesotho is surrounded by mountains and stars, and it’s where I developed a keen interest in space and astronomy. I still remember seeing Halley’s Comet and the moons of Jupiter for the first time.

We moved to Nottingham in the UK when I was eight. I enjoyed school and went to university in Sheffield to study geography, as I loved the natural world. After graduating I joined a firm called Arthur Andersen to work in HR. I chose HR because I really enjoyed working with people and I wanted to make a difference to people in their careers. I was also interested in the technical side, such as the systems and spreadsheets.

In 2002, Andersen was acquired by Deloitte, so I officially became part of the firm. I stayed in HR for seven years before moving into shared service design and implementation. I developed the processes that would help us introduce centralised shared services within HR, increasing the efficiency of the HR services on offer. I then moved into learning and became a learning leader in the UK and then the Global firm.

I’m now the Director of an internal function called Partner Matters, which helps to provide critical support for more than 1,300 UK partners. This includes processes such as their admission to partnership, performance management, retirement transition, and other types of advice and support. We also work in close collaboration with other teams that directly help the partners. I enjoy working with senior leadership because it offers me a real insight into the firm. I also like working with the fantastic people in my team.

I’ve had three children in the past 11 years, and the firm has accommodated me to work part-time, initially for three days a week and now four. I was able to participate in the director promotion process while on my third maternity leave, which meant I came back to a more senior role. I’ve really been supported to have a family and progress my career, and part-time working has helped me to achieve that. Last year I also took six weeks of unpaid parental leave over the summer to spend time with my children.  

Outside of work, I’ve created a space education website called Inspirational Space and I run sessions to help local children to learn more about space and astronomy. It’s wonderful to see children’s faces light up when they look through a telescope for the first time.