At Talent Finance, we’re proud to launch our new blog series Women in Finance – a platform dedicated to showcasing the voices of women shaping the future of the finance industry.
In this edition, we’re joined by Emma Newman, Director of Corporate Finance at Future Plc. Emma shares her journey into finance, the challenges she faced when her career progression slowed after having children, and how she navigated her way back to a senior leadership role.
Her story offers valuable insights into balancing ambition with life outside of work, and the resilience needed to thrive in the industry.
Can you tell us about your journey into Finance and how you got started in the industry?
I initially resisted a career in Finance. Having graduated from Edinburgh Uni in Economics & Law, several of my fellow course mates went straight into Big 4 traineeships and I felt I was more suited to HR or something more generalist.
I worked in a recruitment firm for 6 months and realised quite quickly that this particular choice was a bad one and I was not leveraging my skillset. I knew I wanted to work in business, it was just finding the right route in.
I then chatted to a few of my friends who had gone into accountancy and it sounded great. What’s not to like about working with lots of like-minded people of a similar age, obtaining a professional qualification and being introduced to a variety of different companies and sectors throughout training as an auditor.
So when I moved from Scotland to the South Coast I applied to several of the big firms and decided to join Deloitte in Southampton. I had a few offers, so made my choice based on the people I had met through the process.
Cultural fit is something that has continued to be important to me as I have progressed through my career and this is how I came to make my first move into industry to Fitness First Group.
I worked on their audit for a few years and they were by far my favourite client, a sector I was interested in, energetic and motivated team, muti-national and growing, so when an opportunity came up to join them, I did. I spent 11 years there in total and progressed and developed new skills through a number of internal promotions and role changes.
Have you faced any specific challenges as a woman in Finance?
I definitely feel that my career progression slowed when I had my children. There are not many good senior Finance roles in industry that don’t involve working full time. Colleagues who stayed in practice, however, do seem to be afforded more flexibility along with career progression.
Do you feel the industry has changed in terms of gender diversity over the years?
Absolutely! I was lucky that change was already happening when I joined Deloitte where I never felt gender to be a limiting factor, and then at Fitness First I worked with a hugely successful and driven female CFO who championed having women in senior Finance roles during her time at the helm.
I think this can vary by sector and size of business.
Why should women choose finance as a career path?
Why not? It is an interesting and challenging career, with so many opportunities to work across different sectors, and a career where you can continually develop your knowledge and skillset.
You can choose a size of business that suits your preferences, depending on whether you want to specialise or generalise, manage larger or smaller teams, become more commercial or more technical. The world’s your oyster really.
Finance is also very transferable across geographies so there can be opportunities to travel and work abroad in many organisations.
Senior finance roles require great leadership skills, and these are not gender specific. In fact, having to juggle work with family commitments, I believe, helps make women even more effective in the workplace, developing high levels of resilience and strong negotiation and multi-tasking skills. Raising my own children has certainly required me to be strong on all those fronts.
Emma’s story is a powerful reminder that career paths are rarely linear and that with the right support, determination, time to reevaluate your choices, it’s possible to overcome setbacks and achieve long-term success.
At Talent Finance, we’re committed to amplifying voices like Emma’s to inspire and empower more women across the finance industry. If you’d like to share your own story or nominate someone for our Women in Finance series, we’d love to hear from you.
Connect with Emma on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-newman-a3a61356/
