Founder Q&A with Nerys Walters

We sat down with our Co-Founder Nerys Walters to learn why she wanted to set up Potentia and what she hopes our networking group will achieve.

Please outline the journey you have taken to get to this point in your career:

With aspirations to become a solicitor, after graduation I quickly landed a job in the field. However, it was not long before I discovered a passion for business development and realised that the transactional aspect of law was not for me, so I decided to pursue a career in recruitment instead.

I began my career at larger brands, focusing mainly on building new areas of business for them. I have always loved the buzz of a startup and getting a division or business to scale. So once confident I could do this with a large brand behind me, I then moved into the lesser-known SME market. In 2017 I joined Altum Group to support them with a three-month project, straightaway I fell in love with the culture, the opportunity to build, train, and develop a team, and ended up staying much longer than I had originally planned!

I have built my career in a very male dominated industry, so truly understand the challenges that women have faced and still face whilst trying to navigate the corporate ladder. Both the recruitment industry and the accounting world when I was starting out had this in common. I lacked any female role models and very few of my clients were women. I was told what to wear and how to conduct myself and watched promotion after promotion going elsewhere. It is extremely important to me to show other women that they can build a career in this space and succeed. I have focused my career on finance recruitment and have found that finance is still behind in truly championing female leaders.

Aside from your career, what makes you, you? (Family, friends, hobbies, commitments, etc)

I am a single mother of two amazing children, Amelia is 12 and Blake is 10. Willow, our dalmatian completes our family and we all agree wholeheartedly that she is everyone’s favourite. I am lucky to be surrounded by a loving family and have a strong friendship network to help balance life. When not playing taxi to the kids at the weekend or working I am a keen tennis/padel player as well as generally keeping my body and mind healthy. I have been lucky enough through Altum Group’s charity foundation to participate in marathons, bike rides through Europe and this year I am taking on the Three Peaks Challenge and the moonwalk for breast cancer.

What key things do your think would have supported you / made it smoother when you were starting out on your career?

My generation were raised to believe that we could have it all, a high-flying career, a loving husband and children without breaking a sweat. Whilst I do believe people can have it all, no one can have it all without breaking a sweat. Achieving your career aspirations, maintaining relationships, and raising children is hard work and requires a lot of juggling and sacrifice.

Personally, I would have benefitted from strong female role models, mentors, and a peer network. Being able to ask for advice on how to navigate all the blockers that came my way, how to strategically advance my career and navigate this alongside motherhood as opposed to thinking I needed to choose, potentially could have helped me achieve my goals quicker and with far less stress.

Things have come a long way since I was starting my career, it was commonplace to experience discrimination and/or harassment. It is now vitally important that organisations have robust policies and procedures in place to deal with this and that managers and HR teams take every report of workplace discrimination or harassment seriously. Organisations also have an important role in supporting with things like training and development, peer support groups, and enhanced policies and procedures for working mothers and women in general.

What inspired you to co-create Potentia?

Altum Group is in a unique position owning two brands that support finance professionals throughout their career. Altum Consulting supports the up-and-coming talent and Azura Search supports a network of senior leaders. We have seen first-hand the gender imbalance as finance professionals progress through their career, with women being significantly underrepresented at c-suite level.

I was inspired to co-create Potentia in response to this. I am passionate about supporting my network to achieve their career aspirations and to impact the number of women in senior leadership positions. For more women to get a seat at the table, we need a better table.