Year 10 girls at Bolton School were delighted to welcome back former pupil Anisha Mohammed who returned to offer career advice and her reflections on working in tech, buying, e-commerce and fintech.
Anisha recalled how she started at Bolton School in the Junior Girls’ School and left the Sixth Form with A levels in English Language, History and Spanish in 2009. She shared how, whilst at school, she enjoyed a wide range of extra-curricular activities, including netball and lacrosse and volunteering and how she worked in the school’s Arts Centre as a waitress as well as for local MP Brian Iddon She went on to study English Language and Linguistics at Queen Mary’s in London. Upon graduation and keen to learn more about human rights and NGOs, Anisha told how she took an internship with Minority Rights Group International before moving to Madrid where she worked for The British Council.
Upon her return to the UK, Anisha then undertook a Master’s degree in International Relations at Cardiff University whilst working at Lush Cosmetics. When a job came up that involved using languages – she speaks seven - at Amazon, she took up a position in the Risk Management Department, which saw her dealing with fraud prevention. Within the same company she moved to Vendor Management in a buying role which she really enjoyed. After 3 years with Amazon, Anisha decided that she wanted to do the selling not the buying and, when approached by Hasbro, the second biggest toy company in the world, she moved again. She enjoyed her time there as an E-commerce manager selling their products to retailers.
Anisha said she had always been interested in beauty products and was delighted to take up a role at Charlotte Tilbury as a National Account Manager, selling to digital stores and in store. This, in turn, led to her securing a role at Revlon as Senior Business Development Manager, before she was promoted to Regional Head of E-Commerce. Moving back to Manchester from London, she secured a position with Karna, a Swedish financial tech company, which she referred to as a ‘buy now, pay later’ business and a registered bank in Europe. She told how, she started out as Commercial Manager before being promoted to Head of Partnerships and then Head of Partner Success, her current position. She said she really enjoys the fast-moving pace of the job, although it can be quite stressful at times.
Anisha shared with the GCSE pupils some of the lessons that she had learnt along the way: don’t underestimate volunteering, internships and work experience whilst you are at school; developing soft skills are important; you don’t have to have a plan, you can figure it out as you go; always learn from those around you whatever level you are at; never stop learning; network and seek guidance along the way.
The session ended with the pupils asking a number of questions including what is the longest time you have been in one role, what is your favourite job so far, what additional perks have you received, did you find it challenging re-locating back to Manchester, what A levels did you take and what does your normal week look like?
