Faye Whitmarsh

I started studying American Studies at Leicester in September 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. I found the nature of study immensely relevant to the contemporary geopolitical situation and really enjoyed the four years that I spent completing the programme. I spent my third year studying at the University of Miami, Florida and graduated from Leicester with a BA in 2005, receiving the American Studies Dissertation Prize.

After graduating I took a temporary role at the University of Reading to help them progress their risk management programme, with a specific focus on continuity and crisis management. During the summer of 2006 some of this planning was put to test during the 7/7 London Bombings. With this work experience, combined with a political focus on foreign policy and national security in my degree, I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to manage their Business Continuity and Crisis Management Programme. This included prioritising and analysing critical business activities, identifying threats and vulnerabilities to these activities, and putting plans in place to reduce or mitigate the risk: for example, planning for incidents such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters and transport failure.

After three years with the firm I moved into a client facing role in the Risk Assurance Practice. This included working with a range of clients, including Camelot, EDF, The Department Of Energy and Climate Change, and the Telegraph. I really enjoy having a range of clients in different industries and find it fascinating to analyse how their businesses work.

Variety is really important to me and I feel that the interdisciplinary nature of the degree helped me develop a broad range of skills that has enabled me to balance different projects, clients, demands and priorities.

During my degree I became interested in the psychology in relation to different cultures and based my dissertation on this topic, and I am now embarking on a new role at PwC that focuses on risk, behaviours and cultures within organisations. I believe that the flexibility of the degree programme and encouragement to investigate new topics has given me confidence to take on new challenges which has helped me develop my career.