Shuwel Ahmed - Head of the Project Management Office and Strategic Assistant to the Nordic President at Novartis and Founder of Pupils to Professionals
Being the first-generation British-born child of Bangladeshi immigrant parents, I have experienced first-hand some of the challenges faced by those from under-represented backgrounds, particularly when trying to enter the corporate world.
Growing up, my parents highlighted the importance of an education and I was the first from my family to graduate from university. But as is the case for many first-generation children, I didn’t have any role models to follow when transitioning from university to a professional career. This is where SEO London helped to bridge the gap.
“SEO London has organised hundreds of industry-led programmes for talented students from ethnic minority or low socioeconomic backgrounds since its foundation in 2000, preparing them for career success”
I was first introduced to SEO London, a not-for-profit which prepares talented students from ethnic minority or low socioeconomic backgrounds for career success, after moving to London in 2008. Having enrolled on an SEO programme, I received corporate guidance, coaching and interview preparation tips, which helped me to land a summer internship with the pharmaceutical giant Novartis. At the end of the internship, I was offered a permanent position at the company’s global headquarters in Switzerland. This experience was a springboard for my career, leading to international opportunities to work in both Japan and Sweden. Realising how fortunate I had been to have access to such a progressive organisation and such incredible opportunities, I was inspired to give back.
With the help of my colleagues at Novartis, I founded Pupils to Professionals, an initiative aimed at providing talented students from less privileged parts of the world with work experience opportunities at one of Novartis’s many offices. For up to a week, students attend workshops on CV building and career development, meet leaders from across the business to understand how different areas of the organisation work, and some have been fortunate enough to attend Q&A sessions with our CEO, Vas Narasimhan. Like me, other students now also have a platform to learn how a large organisation operates and the different career opportunities available to them within it.
Since 2014 Pupils to Professionals has been able to offer more than 40 work experience opportunities to students from across Europe and Africa, with plans to roll out the initiative across 10 additional countries and provide 100 opportunities by 2021. Since 2019 we have also provided career workshops for 500 UK school children, with the goal of reaching 1,000 children by the end of 2021.
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