Emma Kwiatkowski, Director of Accountancy & Finance, Nottingham

I’m proud to be celebrating my 25th anniversary with Hays this year after joining the company back in January 1997.

I studied English at Lancaster University. After I finished university, I interviewed for a graduate job with another recruitment agency. The consultant soon realised that I wasn’t interested in the job she was putting me forward for. When she asked me what type of job I wanted, I had no idea, which prompted her to tell me about her career in recruitment.

She thought I would be a great fit for the industry, which inspired me to research recruitment companies I would like to work for, and Hays was top of my list. After going through multiple interviews and an assessment day in Glasgow, I was excited when I got offered a job at Hays.

My career has never been held back by my gender. I remember, during my 12-week review with Nigel Heap, I told him I wanted his job (at the time, to be the regional director of Hays accountancy & finance in the East Midlands) and I was going to do it by the time I was 30 – and I did! I never felt impacted by my gender at any point.

I started as a recruitment consultant and all my hard work paid off by hitting various promotions to get to director level. I’m very aware that opportunities like this don’t happen everywhere, which is what makes Hays a great place to work.

I like to tell my team about my story at Hays, to remind them that anything is possible by working hard and that being a woman does not hold you back. Having great female role models was very important to me when I first joined, so I want to ensure I give that back too.

I’m also proud to run a leadership team that is completely balanced across men and women, which I think truly gives us the best of both worlds in our region. I believe that having a diverse team encourages aspiration. I’ve worked for three female directors and four male directors over my career, and I’ve learned loads from every one of them.

Personally, I use it as an opportunity to celebrate all the women that I know - not just in work but also outside of work too. I love the fact we have a day specifically to celebrate how awesome we all are! I think the #BreaktheBias theme is perfect – if only we could get everybody to see a gender-equal world, we’d all be living in a better place!

When I was young, I wanted to be Kate Adie as I was convinced, I was going to be a hard-hitting news journalist and travel the world, until I saw her in Beirut and decided against it. If I was picking my top female guests for a dinner party, I’d have Kate Adie, Jackie Kennedy, Madonna (not necessarily for her music but because she’s always pushed the boundaries and I reckon would have some brilliant stories), and Michelle Obama – after having read her book, I think she’d be a great guest. From Hays, it would be Donna Clarke & Varinder Sanghera because we always have the most fun on a night out!

I think embracing a truly diverse approach, which breaks the bias, starts at the top. You need a clear vision for what you want to achieve around diversity. As a female leader in my business, I want to be the role model that my team aspires to be. So, understanding my own unconscious bias is extremely important.

The conversation must start somewhere, so you need to talk to the women within your organisation and understand what is stopping them from succeeding and moving up the career ladder. The next step is to put actions in place to remove those barriers. These could be related to the flexibility needed for a parent or carer, pay parity, training or mentoring that is required. Until you start the conversation you won’t know what these barriers are to take action in overcoming them.

Find out more about the job opportunities available tostart your Hays story today.