Introduction Corporate Finance Advisory

Well um before we kick things off i just want Corporate Finance Advisory to say thank you for taking the time um you know a lot of people that watch this will benefit from the conversation from hearing your story your background what you do in your role and any advice and tips you’ve got for them um it’ll be great to just learn a bit more about you and what you’re currently doing yeah yeah cool yes so um so my name is ashley and um i work at deloitte in the advisory corporate finance department which is another term for the m a team and so we work on buy side and sell side engagements um for various transactions um so i grew up in swansea and but i work in cardiff um in in the capital city and i went to cardiff university as well so i wanted to stay fairly close to home and i studied accounting and finance and i started in 2014 and i graduated in 2017 um and then i went straight into a role at deloitte then um my role started uh as a result of an internship that i got at deloitte so it was a six-week internship between my second and third year so it was great um after the internship i was offered a position so it’s great going into third year with you know a job in the bag so i could sort of relax then in third year which was which was really helpful and i initially started i didn’t actually start in the m a team i started in corporate tax okay i had an internship in corporate tax and but i i sort of quickly realized that i was probably best positioned and and my sort of skills getting personality was more closely aligned to a role into a corporate finance and deal making so um so i then i transferred internally then to the m a team which was which was fairly fairly and hassle-free and and was really good amazing.

Growing Up Corporate Finance Advisory

if we go back a bit growing up what was going up like for you um were your parents for example adamant on you Corporate Finance Advisory a certain career or did you know you wanted to go into the world of you know uh m a all of that yeah so it’s interesting so i had a great upbringing um so we always had a really busy house here that brother anderson i’ve got a brother and a sister and my parents and my grandparents as well have always been really supportive in in anything i’ve done so as long as i’m happy they’re they’re happy really um my mum in particular was very um very very supportive in making sure that i studied hard got good grades um and i think they were they were always keen for me to go to university because i was more sort of academically inclined and so university sort of seems to be better than going for an apprenticeship for instance but i i’ve always done musical theater and performing since i was very young so they they my grandparents always wanted me to go down that route and go to drama college and stuff but um i was i was definitely keen for a more um definitely more for finance.

Education and Career Path Corporate Finance Advisory

got it and i’m just on your linkedin and i see so you Corporate Finance Advisory went to cardiff as you mentioned what made you want to study accounting and finance in particular um so i originally actually wanted to do medicine and become a doctor but i had uh work experience with a family friend and i quickly realized that it just wasn’t for me and i’ve i’ve always had a real interest in the financial markets and transactions and that sort of stuff and i always read you know the classic books barbarians at the gate liar’s poker all that sort of stuff yeah and and that really sort of sparked my interest in corporate finance because it just sounded so exciting and and i had quite a few friends who uh who worked in the industry and we would have various conversations about what life was like for them what what you know what a day looks like for them and i just i just liked what i heard and i just said that you know i think i think that’s definitely going to suit me and i was always quite mathematically inclined so i definitely wanted to do a mathematical type degree which is why i wanted to do accounting for finance because it’s quite mathematical but it’s also very practical and applicable to a lot of different jobs once once you leave university yeah got it got it and when you went to uni did you kind of like have a game plan i need to get these internships or this internship in order to get this grad scheme or was it just like go with the flow to be honest it was more when i started university it was more my goal was more to meet as many people as i can have a great time um but my circle of friends has always been fairly ambitious and switched on and i think that’s definitely had an influence on me growing up because i have friends with doctors and lawyers and other people who are in finance and they’re all very ambitious and but they’re not so much chasing money it’s more chasing their passion yeah and that that has definitely pushed me to sort of better myself and strive strive to always be better so then once once i i think i sort of partied hard and met loads of people in my first year university after that then it was head down make sure i set myself up as best as possible but once i leave university to to go into a really good job you got your tax six-week internship in your second year right um yeah that’s good to if you could talk to talk about how you managed to secure that what was the process like was it easy what were the challenges.