When I first joined the University of Birmingham I did not know what I wanted to do as a career. As Business Management was quite an open course it gave the ability to work out what I did and did not want to do.

During my time I knew I wanted to work in a client facing role in the technology industry. The year in industry gave me the ability to test this with IBM in London for a year and I loved it. They offered me a graduate job after my year there and I moved to London straight after I graduated.

Having spent 3 more years at IBM I had learned so much but knew it was time to move on. Having my experience and degree behind me meant that I was fully prepared to go and work at Amazon Web Services and I haven’t looked back since.

Why did you choose Birmingham? 

I chose to study at Birmingham because I was very impressed with the campus when I visited, it has a perfect mix of being a large open campus with everything in one place and still being close to the centre of Birmingham. With the majority of halls being in one area I knew it would be a great social experience as well as an academic one and I was not wrong. 

This as well as the top quality sports and academic facilities showed me that I would be in an environment that would get the best out of me.   

What has been the most extraordinary or memorable day on the job?

The most extraordinary day in my career has to be presenting to the board of a one the world’s largest banks as part of a deal worth more than $1Billion. At the time it seemed crazy that so early on in my career I was given such big responsibilities but everything that I had learnt at school, university and in my job had prepared me for this and it was thoroughly enjoyable. 

What one word would you use to describe the University of Birmingham? 

Social