The Space: Leadership And Law - Episode Six (Podcast)

We're back with another episode in The Space!

This week, Emma Dennis, D&I and wellbeing senior manager, sits down with Roz Trimmer, head of HR (UK), to explore Roz's career journey and what led to a role in HR.

Roz also talks about her role as a leader and how to manage and support a team of people.

She dives under the surface about her experience of maternity leave, the challenges of coming back to work and how she balances a challenging role with being a mother to two children.

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Transcript

Emma Dennis: Welcome to The Space where we break down barriers and perceptions about a career in law by talking to the talented people of Gowling WLG. I'm Emma Dennis, diversity inclusion and wellbeing senior manager at Gowling WLG, so join me as we get to dive under the surface and understand the diverse experiences and perspectives of our people, how they've got to where they are and what they wished they'd known.

Today, we are here with Roz Trimmer, head of HR at Gowling WLG, to hear more about her role, how she got to where she is and balancing a career and young family. Hi Roz, thank you for being here today.

Roz Trimmer: Thank you for having me.

Emma: I wanted to start off with asking you did you always know that you wanted to have a career in HR?

Roz: Weirdly, I think I did. Not always, you hear a lot of HR people when they get to sort of my stage going 'oh I just fell into it' or I moved sideways, but I think I was never sure really what to do at university or college or anything like that. And I remember speaking to my mom and she was a secretary - but did some HR jobs at her work - and it just sounded quite interesting so I just sort of thought I'd try that. So actually, the degree I did was a generic business studies one but with an HR pathway, so I sort of knew from that age that I was interested in the human behaviour, the organisational psychology side but I didn't want to kind of specialise so I kept it quite general. But yeah, I did know which is kind of unusual for HR folk.

Emma: Yeah, you're right. People do tend to sort of fall into it don't they?

Roz: Yeah.

Emma: And then when you decided that's what you wanted to do, I guess you learnt more around HR as a profession, what were the sort of things that attracted you to it.

Roz: It's definitely the bit around behaviour, I think people are fascinating, I think the bit that attracted me was definitely understanding how companies work, how decisions are made, impact on people, how people work together and make decisions, that kind of thing was the bit that attracted me. When you then get into HR at low levels, it's quite....you know it's not really that stuff that you are dealing with so you then see where the opportunities, where it could take you. HR for me then becomes about...yes that bit still remains there but it becomes more about building performance, enabling the company solving problems so that's the bit that I now really like.

It's really funny you hear a lot of kind of young people, I remember recruiting for HR administrators, 15 years ago, and they would say I love people, that's why I want to be in HR. You don't come into HR if you love people because you see all sides of people and you have to do some difficult things, some challenging things, difficult conversations around people so actually for me the driving factor and the attraction was that understanding people and why things happen the way they do, how to make things happen a bit better, a bit easier, yeah that was the driving factor ultimately.

Emma: And what was your route to where you are now like, so you did your degree, what came after that?

Roz: So, it was difficult to get the first job because everywhere says they need HR experience which they don't for an entry level role but I was fortunate enough to join a company round where I used to live and grew up in, in Bracknell which was a financial services company, I joined there as an HR administrator and I was promoted relatively quickly after 18 months to business partner. It was a huge learning curve because going from administrator where it's quite process driven, you know you've got black and white policies to follow, queries to answer that it can be quite basic to going into this world of grey is how you describe HR at the higher levels, where you don't have a process, you don't have a handbook to follow necessarily, you're trying to find the right solution to problems so I made that transition. We were growing quite a lot actually back in those days, in the early 2000s, so I got involved in quite a lot of merger and acquisitions work, I did a lot of TUPE transfers did quite a lot of culture change bits and pieces. I actually was seconded while I was there into kind of merge and acquisition specialist teams, so we went and got to schmooze connections and potential opportunities to buy, kind of small financial services companies to bring them up into our firm. And then I got my first management role there after that so I remained as a business partner but took on the management of the HR operations team so over my ten years in that company I felt I got a really good grounding in HR, I did a lot of different things, I did a lot of projects, a lot of change but after ten years you kind of look back and think wow I've been here since university, time to move on. So, then I bounced around a little bit for the next year which was an interesting experience in of itself I suppose because especially when you work in HR you have to work somewhere where your values are aligned to the company's. I made a couple of poor decisions after I moved on from my first job because I just hadn't been out in the big wide world looking for roles and opportunities, I didn't really know what to look for but then after a couple of understanding what decisions I'd made and where I might do things differently, I got a first job at a law firm so I joined Mishcon in London and I spent about two years there as a HR business partner for the litigation team and business services team, that was a hugely rewarding challenge in terms of understanding a different culture, financial services to law.... people say they're quite similar but they're not.

Emma: They're not.

Roz: And then after that I actually took a career break and I moved to Spain with my partner, I lived in Madrid for six months which was lovely, I got to travel and eat food and drink wine for six months and then we decided to relocate up to the West Midlands when I came back from there.

That was when I got my first head of HR opportunity at a marketing company which was expanding very heavily into the technology area so that was really fascinating, it was owner/managed company grown from ten people ten years ago, the CEO was the guy who started it, very passionate, very different environment from corporate structures I had worked in before and then yes, this opportunity arose so this for me gave me an opportunity to go back into the corporate world which I suppose because that's where I feel I grew up in HR, I think it suits me better. The team was bigger and it just felt like a really good time to join the firm, there was a lot of growth on the horizon, lots of things to do so yes, that's quite a long way round but how I ended up where I am today.

Emma: No, it's good and just to go back to one thing you mentioned, you mentioned you took a career break for six months, what led to that decision? It feels like quite a scary thing to suddenly decide to do midway through.

Roz: Do you know, it really was, and I doubted myself quite a lot. I remember when we moved to Madrid, I probably spent the first two weeks sat on the sofa wondering what I'd done (laughing) because career had been such a huge part of my life and then to suddenly go no, I'm going to take a break. It came up because my other half worked for an international company and was asked to go and set up a Madrid office so we went over there, he worked, I didn't....I don't think I'd get off like that this time round but yeah, so it was really challenging, I found it very difficult mentally at first because yeah I was completely career focused and then to consciously make that decision to have a break when it wasn't about raising a family or it wasn't about....it was just a complete opportunity. Yeah, it was challenging but I think after those first two weeks of wondering what I'd done, I sort of picked myself up, I did some Spanish lessons, got in touch with people locally who done similar things, made a bit of a life. The good thing is they have Fridays off in August so we got to travel a lot with my other half during the weekends so saw a lot of Spain, I absolutely loved it and actually I think about the half way point I realised this is great, I need to make the most of it so that's where I really threw myself into it and tried to think less about career, just think I'll do that when I get back home.

Emma: When you look at your career today, I guess there are two parts to what I'm going to ask you. I think with HR there are so many ways you can go isn't there? There are so many different areas of HR that you could specialise into or go into, did you know you wanted to go for head of HR and what are your future aspirations?

Roz: That's a really good question. I think there are a lot of routes and a lot of specialisms you can take. I suppose I got the opportunity to be a business partner relatively early in my career which made me realise I liked the generalist aspect of it, I think as a business partner especially in smaller companies, you touch a lot more of those specialist areas so I'm still quite involved in recruitment, in reward processes, I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any stretch but you get involved in a few things across the generalist piece and I suppose I just....that's probably something I've fallen into, I enjoyed managing the operations team so when the opportunity came up to manage a wider team you then take it. I took it I suppose because I thought that was a natural next step, I don't think I've ever really had a plan.

Emma: Yeah.

Roz: I've been quite fortunate that I've worked in places where there's been growth opportunities, I think I like challenging myself so I'm not afraid to put my hand up and say I'll try that out for a bit so the secondment to the M&A team was quite a big thing back then for me because again that was moving outside of HR and what I knew into much more commercial role but I saw it as an opportunity for growth so I went for it and I think that's how I've looked at my career is just making the most of opportunities that come my way rather than necessarily a plan that I've had out from the start. I haven't really had that, I've looked towards my management line I've had and people who have worked above me, my HR directors that I've worked with and everybody does take a slightly different route so yeah I can't say I've had a mapped out plan and knew where I was going to go and actually sometimes I look at myself and think wow, how did I get here? Cos it wasn't part of the master plan, or it wasn't part of any necessarily thought through approach, it's just making the most of things.

Emma: Have you always been ambitious that you wanted to get on and get further?

Roz: Yeah definitely. My mom was a single parent of three and I think I saw her struggle so for me it was always....I didn't want to do that, I wanted to be in control of my own destiny so I was going to push myself....that sounds quite deep doesn't it? (laughing) but I wanted to push myself and make sure I was independently happy, so a career has always been really important to me.

Emma: I mentioned you are head of HR at the firm now, what does your role look like now here at Gowling WLG?

Roz: So, on paper my role is....it manages quite a lot of people so I've got the recruitment team, the HR business partners and advisory team and the HR operations team that all sit under me. As part of the role I work alongside the rest of the HR leadership team so we are obviously supporting L&D, Reward, D&I, all the other teams that work under CREST as HR director here so my role is quite heavily management focused.

Emma: Yeah.

Roz: It's quite a large team, there's a lot going on. I lead on projects, I support on projects, always trying to think through what we can do better so we do a lot of surveys, the project work we do you know you do it for a reason, it's to make things better, it's to improve performance, it's to get a better result, it's to get whatever the motivator is. Aside to that you have the reactive bits, people want to come and chat about something, that happens quite frequently, it's quite nice though. So yeah, it's a lot more heavily towards the management of the team and also about trying to push us forward on the project side or processes that we've got in place and how they're working.

Emma: And what elements of your role do you enjoy the most? What are the things that get you out of bed in the morning and make you excited to be in work?

Roz: Honestly, it's mainly the team. I think being a manager, leader/manager, whatever term you want to use for it is a real privilege, you are leading a function and you're having an impact on the people around you, and I think that gets taken for granted sometimes with some people. We always know the story of the technical specialist that got promoted into management because of how good they were technically that maybe they're not very good on the people side, that happens across the board whereas I think actually it's a really serious part of the job and it's actually the bit that gives me the most enjoyment as a result. You put a lot of time and effort into it but to see the team around you be able to take on new things or get really good feedback from their clients, you feel really proud of it so that's the bit actually that keeps me going so I'm quite fortunate that I've got quite a big team.

Emma: They will keep you going!

Roz: Yeah, they keep me going.

Emma: Before we take a quick break, I wanted to ask you one more question. I think there's always a fear of HR in people, I think HR has this reputation of something to be worried about or something to be scared of and we definitely see people not wanting to talk to HR teams thinking they're not going to get the help they need or whatever. What do you think HR teams could do as a function to help break down some of those barriers because ideally what we're trying to do is get the best solution for everybody to a problem before it escalates and becomes a massive...

Roz: Yeah. It's a really fascinating thing for me because I completely agree, I know that it has that label and it's so interesting when you work in HR, we're not the cloak and dagger people to be afraid of, we're actually trying to get the best out of people, trying to solve people's problems, trying to think how we can make things better so it's quite fascinating. I think we need to probably work on our visibility quite a lot, I think HR generally has a visibility problem. I think we're quite progressive at Gowling, I think we take it quite seriously, the team are generally well known but I think there's always more to get out there and start talking to people. I think as soon as people see HR sat on management meetings I think that sows a seed of doubt but actually what they are doing on those management meetings believe it or not, is not sitting there chatting about every individual on the team, they're talking about either performance at an aggregate level or talking about what's coming down the horizon so it is appraisals, is a pay review, is it something in the market that we need to be aware of, it's not all the things people assume, it's actually a positive role I'd like to think on the whole, you know we're enabling things, we're making things happen but I do get it because obviously for a lot of people, maybe the only contact they've had with HR is at the hiring stage or when there's a problem.

So I think there's certainly a bit around visibility, I think there's also something about making it more, you know we're people too, we need to get our personalities out there, I think old days of personnel are truly gone but you need to remember that we're people too and we can help and we've been through some things and sometimes we just want to sit down and have a chat about what's going on and understand what's really happening rather than sending people down a process or a policy that might not necessarily be the right answer. My hope is that we get rid of that tag and be seen as the real drivers of change that I think we are capable of being.

Emma: Yeah. Right we're going to take a short break now and when we're back we'll find out more about Roz's career and what advice she would give those at the start of theirs.

Music

Emma: Welcome back to part 2. We're going to kick off now Roz with some quickfire questions to try and get to know you a little bit better. You ready?

Roz: I'm ready!

Emma: You nervous?

Roz: I'm nervous (laughing).

Emma: What was your first job?

Roz: Working in Tie Rack.

Emma: Wow, God that's a flashback, Tie Rack!

Roz: Yeah, selling cummerbunds at Christmas. (laughing)

Emma: That's amazing. Where did you grow up?

Roz: I grew up in a small village called Lightwater in Surrey.

Emma: Sounds nice.

Roz: It was quite nice, if anyone knows Camber in Guildford, it's round there. But yeah, good old Surrey.

Emma: What time do you usually wake up in the morning?

Rozs: Aha...well, usually sometimes between 5 and 6 because I have two very young children who...

Emma: I was going to say is that by choice?

Roz: If it was by choice, oh gosh I can't even remember the last time I slept past 7 I think is the latest recently but yeah it's between 5 and 6 depending on my little boy in particular.

Emma: Awww. Is your bed made right now?

Roz: Absolutely not!

Emma: Yeessss!

Roz: I don't have time in the morning!

Emma: This has been my main pet peeve question for every interview so far that everybody's bed has been made and mine is normally not made.

Roz: Mine's not made, I hate to say it but it's never made.

Emma: Mine isn't either! Oh...kindred spirits (much laughing!)

What is your favourite breakfast?

Roz: Smoked salmon scrambled eggs.

Emma: Oooh nice. Dream holiday destination?

Roz: Vietnam.

Emma: You been there before?

Roz: I have been there, but I've not spent hardly enough time there.

Emma: Is it amazing?

Roz: It's amazing, the food is incredible, the people are lovely.

Emma: What's your favourite book?

Roz: The Book Thief.

Emma: What's your go-to karaoke song?

Roz: Walking in Memphis.

Emma: Ooohh, that's a good one!

Roz: The Marc Cohen one.

Emma: I think at the end of this podcast series we need to get everybody's favourite karaoke songs and do a little singalong video.

Roz: (laughing) I mean I'm not good at it, but I can do it.

Emma: You can do it. Right, we've some either or questions now. Cats or dogs?

Roz: Cats.

Emma: Would you rather fly or have superstrengh?

Roz: Fly.

Emma: More of an introvert or extravert?

Roz: Introvert.

Emma: Night out or a night in?

Roz: Night in.

Emma: Would you rather travel to the past or the future?

Roz: Past.

Emma: Learn by watching or learn by doing?

Roz: Doing.

Emma: And one last question out of these and this is more a thoughtful question, what do you think people misunderstand about you?

Roz: That I'm an introvert. I think I've worked hard to overcome shyness and to portray confidence. I definitely am more confident than I was when I was younger of course but I definitely work at it.

Music

Emma: So,

wanted to go back to what we were just talking about before we had the break around this fear, this fear or reputation of HR. I just wondered if someone has an issue that they are nervous about coming to HR with, why should they? What advice can you give or why should they come to talk to somebody?

Roz: There's a few bits to that. I think it's a real shame when people feel they can't come and talk to us, like I said earlier, we're people and we're objective to them and we've got experience in this, you know the amount of times that people have come and spoken to us in the past we know how people feel, we can empathise with it and we can give some advice. I think the biggest misunderstanding people have about HR is that you come, and you make it formal and obviously if you're in a formal process or you want to kick off a formal process then yeah of course we do that bit as well but actually the biggest part of our job is in preventing things from escalating. It's to make sure that people are operating as they should and getting the most out of it and I think it's a real shame that people don't come and ask for our opinions more on what to do or just to say, I saw this and I'm not sure about it or I heard this, or my manager said this. Actually, talking about it really is the best thing to do and talking about it with people who can give some ideas, who can be a confidential ear, I think is a really good thing. There's a lot of companies that outsource HR and I've always thought that's a huge mistake because you should get to know your HR team, you should get to know the people that you can talk to, you should get to know that they are confidential to you, we respect confidentiality, we work very closely together. My team and I will talk about things going on, but we won't often say names or we are very careful about that and what you get from an in-house HR team is people who understand the environment and the context and know what might work and might not. They might even know the person you are talking about and might have an insight into their character that you might not have seen so I do think there's a lot of benefits. I think people should just take advantage of it, get to know the team, get to know who supports them and if they've got a problem or something they're not sure what to do, come talk to us, it doesn't go anywhere.

Emma: Yeah.

Roz: Unless we decide it should or unless things overtake it or whatever it is, it's just a conversation off record to get some advice and some ideas.

Emma: Yeah, yeah. Get rid of the fear.

Roz: Exactly.

Emma: Go and talk, everybody's human.

Roz: Exactly.

Emma: And everybody just wants things to work out the best.

Roz: Yeah, and believe me, exactly what my team doesn't want is a load more formal things that we also have to deal with.

Emma: Yeah exactly.

Roz: We'd rather help people get the right result in the best way which is often not a formal process.

Emma: Yeah. And things do...you leave things and they do escalate and then it becomes a formal process and things can become very contentious and relationships break down whereas actually if you'd gone there in the beginning...

Roz: Exactly and especially on that relationship point, having someone else's opinion that isn't in your team that maybe hasn't seen it, they can give you a real objective and different view on that then you might otherwise get that think is really valuable in those situations. You can test your thinking, test was it really that or was it something else or could it have been something else and just have a different look at it in a different way.

Emma: I wanted to talk a little bit about how you balance career and family and I know you've got two beautiful children. How old?

Roz: 3 and 1.

Emma: 3 and 1 so two under 3 effectively and you came back from maternity back in April.

Roz: Yeah.

Emma: Did you have any preconceptions about how life would change after having children and if so, how's the reality compared to that?

Roz: It's so much harder. It's really funny, again with my HR hat on throughout your HR career you're always dealing with family leave as part of it and flexible working requests but when you're quite a junior HR person, I wasn't in that position, you think you understand what someone's going through when they come and talk to you about it. You have no idea! You really have no idea. So you can be empathetic, you can again with something like that follow a process and think you're giving the right support and nine times out of ten you're probably right but actually the internal monologue and struggle that people face, you have no idea about and I think, I feel quite fortunate actually that both my children were born post Covid so when I think about all the people that I used to manage in my team that I see rushing off at 5.30 as late as possible because they didn't want to be seen leaving work early, they needed to get back to pick up the kids and do bedtime and bathtime, some people have flexible arrangements but more often than not they didn't. Now that I'm a mom I'm actually really grateful that the world has moved on in terms of flexible working, my job is busy, it's demanding but I try and structure my time so that I have a break where I can pick them up from nursery, I can do bedtime and then I can log back on in the evenings and that works for me. Mentally it's a whole different ball game, you're constantly thinking about everything or waiting for a call from nursery cos you know it's going to come when you drop them off at nursery this morning and they're a bit ill.

Emma: What do you think the biggest challenges have been coming back to work after your maternity leave?

Roz: I think, so both my maternity leaves I took quite short periods out so the first one was five months and then this one was eight/nine months in the end I think I took. So I didn't feel....well the first time was Covid so it felt like nothing had changed. I just literally went away one day and came back and it was the same whereas this time round it definitely felt different. Personally having someone come in to do your role, that was a new thing for me to experience, it's so common obviously most roles are covered when somebody goes on family leave but actually coming back, especially as a manager of a team, I think you can't help but think of them as they're your team so to think of somebody managing them and giving them direction and helping them in ways that you perhaps can't or just haven't had time to do it, whatever it is, I think that's quite a difficult mental thing to overcome. In terms of the work I'm really grateful because my manager and my team, I did keep in touch a little bit when I was out but they just made it really easy, the handover was really easy, it was quick to get up to date, I suppose not taking a full year things had moved on but not loads, nothing I couldn't either get to grips with quite quickly.

Emma: And what would your advice be to anyone who's about to go on any sort of family leave? How can they prepare for that and more importantly prepare for that return as well?

Roz: So I think the biggest thing for me was before going off was talking to the key people around you, so the team, your stakeholders in the business, just as a cementing of that relationship, having a conversation before you go away around what's going to happen while you're off, that you are coming back and planting those seeds, that really helped me mentally be able to take that break knowing that they were in good hands with my cover, that they were in good hands and nothing was going to go wrong but equally I was very confident that was coming back, I wanted to build that relationship so it was an easy thing to pick up again when you came back.

Returning to work I worried about it a lot and I think most people probably do. I did a lot of KIT days which I suppose my biggest advice from that is don't feel you have to if you don't want to. I did them because I felt I should and financial reasons and that kind of stuff but actually the biggest thing for me was probably about three weeks before I was due to come back saying I just need to enjoy the rest of my maternity leave and then I didn't do any work, I didn't look at my phone, I didn't do any KIT days and I think again for everybody it's completely different, so if people expect you to do something don't feel you've got to do it and when you come back, just make sure you've got someone there that will help you whether that's your manager, whether that's someone in your team, just someone that can be somebody to chat to, have a cup of tea with, have a break and again like you were just saying, be kind to yourself, you have been out, you're not going to know everything. It's difficult when you enter a conversation or I found some of my team members would start talking to me about something as if I'd known it from the outset and you have to pause, I don't know all of this, I need to take a minute. That's ok, you can take that time, you should feel comfortable taking that time but I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to just come back and hit the ground running and get back up to speed really, really quickly but it does take time. I'm sat here three months later probably still not completely back to speed with everything but you pick it up as you go so yeah I think you can definitely do some things to manage it in a good way, to make sure you've got those relationships to build back on but it's really important to take the time for yourself to make sure that you're going to remember your maternity leave positively and not all the bits that you were worried about with work that never happened anyway.

Emma: So we've been talking to a lot of different people across this series, partners and lawyers and then a couple of people from business services but I just wanted to get your perception of what it's like working in a business services function in an international law firm?

Roz: It's really varied the variety of people you talk to, the challenges you see across the firm and the opportunities are really really ...its exciting at the moment it's really exciting I'm glad I came back from maternity leave when I did if I'm honest cause there is quite a lot going on and I think you really get to see the inner workings of the firm and you get to see how everything connects together. I think, you know, business services we are probably seen in the background but we do so much work that goes unnoticed so much stuff that's about, you know, again for me I know I've harped on about this but it's about making people's lives better, it's about making things easier and I think, you know, asking the value of everything. As a business services function you're not making money so the question for us is always what value I am adding to this so I think, you know, you can cut through a lot of the noise but it's quite interesting to hear what's going on to be part of these conversations. The people that you talked to in different places see what challenges they're facing, how it's different, how it might be the same it's really interesting and then when we look into internationally that's just, you know, we are learning as we go with that side but it's so fascinating, and its again just a really exciting time to be here and watch what's happening. So, the opportunity to get involved in really different things that haven't been done before is a really interesting bit about working here I think.

Emma: And how'd you think HR contributes to the future growth in the firm?

Roz: I think if you boil HR down to its key processes all parts of it, yes, we are about hiring, yes we're about putting in place, you know, performance systems all that kind of stuff but I think what we really add is a really deep understanding of how we work so because of seeing the cross sections across the firm you just understand a little more how interactions happen, how, you know, what's a pressure somewhere which might not be somewhere else but how you might be able to use that to work together it's about unlocking things and really facilitating that growth. I think as well, we get to ask some quite difficult questions that might otherwise not be asked because we're not, you know, in a particular specialism as such and kind of sit across all of it and look very objectively across the whole piece. I remember when I was a business partner a few years ago being told I was kind of the foil to the management team because, yes, I'd add some stupid questions but you'd also ask questions that they might not be thinking about because they're focused on ...at the time it was the sales business that I was partnering with so, you know, they're talking about their growth plans and their business plans and how they're going to get from x to y and you kind of sat there thinking how are you going to do it and have you thought about this group of people that you might not be thinking about, have you thought about how that's going to connect with what that team over there is doing and you can join some of the dots so that for me is the biggest value of HR I think is that kind of ...the ability to challenge from a neutral position, the ability to see everything across the piece and to join up some of those dots.

Emma: What advice would you give to anyone who's at the start of their HR career at the moment?

Roz: So, I really think the biggest thing for anybody is just to make the most of every single opportunity so, that's probably transferrable to everybody I know but particularly in HR especially if you're working in an administrative heavy role, you know, I sometimes look at it as if you're in an HR admin role you could literally be doing any sort of admin you're not, you might not be learning much about HR because you might just be doing general queries or contract or filing or anything like that so I think the minute an opportunity comes your way to do something out of that take it. That's certainly what I did and I think you need to make the most of those opportunities they don't always come along you need to put yourself in people's minds so, you know, now that I'm in the position I'm in I can look at my team around me and I'm no close to some of them but I can, I know who might be up for more of a challenge, who might be up for putting a bit of extra effort in, you see it through how they operate at work and I think you need to put yourself in the best position to develop to grow just make it known that you're up for it, put your hand up, get involved even if it's not on your career path it might be an opportunity that you learn a lot from so I just think, yeah, make the most of every opportunity.

Emma: Yea, very brave. Things just happen, things happen you've just got to be there and willing to be like yes. What for any aspiring lawyers that might be listening now with your experience of Gowling, any advice for them?

Roz: I think, any aspiring lawyers I would say is be really open so I think a lot of lawyers might have their ...a view of where they think they want their career to go but I think if you're really open to understanding different areas, different sectors, different industries it will shape you in a different way and only make you a stronger lawyer as a result because you'll just have seen a lot more, asked a lot more questions, be curious and want to find things out because I think it will, you know, not every lawyer ends up where think they're going to go so I think it's being open and asking questions and making the most of every second that you've got to try and learn about it, to push you out of your comfort zone a little bit more.

Emma: What I've got one final question for you. What's the best thing that's happened to you in the last week? Could be personal, could be professional, best thing? And finally, what's the best thing that's happened to you this week?

Roz: It's my daughter learning the words and dance moves to Dynamite.

When you just see a video of that...

I've got a video she's a pose at the end, it's fantastic and its kept me going through some difficult days.

Emma: Oh! Bless that's brilliant but a really big thank you Roz for sitting down with me today and sharing some of your stories and some of your insights, it's been really really helpful.

Roz: I hope it has and thank you for asking me it's been great.

Emma: So, we'll be back next week to get to know more talented people at Gowling WLG. Have a wonderful week and remember we all have the power to make a difference.

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