Appt is a specialised patient engagement tool that makes it simple for primary care providers to achieve high uptake for preventive health appointments like the NHS Health Check. I started Appt in 2017 when I was working in a GP practice that served a deprived part of Tower Hamlets. I thought that there was a real opportunity to improve the working lives of my colleagues in the practice and to improve health outcomes for the community we served. In the early days, it was just me, pretending to be a robot to collect data and test out ideas. This helped me to quickly iterate through real-world trials with small numbers of patients. This data built my confidence that I was onto something and provided me with the leverage that I needed to build a network of partners and funders. Today Appt is a dedicated team of four with ambitious plans for how we can improve the delivery of preventive healthcare in the U.K., whilst reducing the effects of health inequality. Appt was first funded by Innovate U.K. as part of the Digital Health Catalyst programme. We were running a research and development project until April 2020 to test our innovative approach to patient engagement in East London GP practices. These trials were a success - we found that GP practices using Appt's service saw 40% more patients for the NHS Health Check (an important cardiovascular disease prevention programme) compared to practices using "business as usual" methods.Then, in July 2020, as a result of our successes in the Digital Health Catalyst project, we secured £370k in follow on funding from Innovate UK to work on a system that will increase the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccination programme. I now lead a team of 8 wonderful colleagues and I'm focused on taking our first integrated product to market across the UK.

InCommon aims to advance social inclusion by facilitating educational and recreational intergenerational sessions. The Charity brings primary school children into sheltered housing through a facilitated programme that lasts throughout the academic year.I sit on the quarterly board of the amazing charity InCommon. Once a month we gather at InCommons offices to hear about the (always incredible) progress that Charlotte and Laura et. al. have made over the last three months. At every meeting I am blown away by what these amazing social entrepreneurs achieve in the field of intergenerational understanding and elderly isolation. I always leave these sessions totally inspired. As a group we act as a sounding board for new ideas and provide opinions and guidance on the development of commercial strategy. We also provide a governance mechanism and help hold InCommon to account as they execute. It is a privilege to be part of their journey.

DrDoctor puts patients in control of their healthcare, whilst maximising valuable NHS resources. I first met the DrDoctor team not long after starting Appt. I was catching up with an old colleague and telling him about my idea and he recommended I get in touch. I sent a cold message through the form on their website and one of the founders, Tom, was quick to reply and invite me in for a cup of tea and a chat. I came in armed in with the research that I had been carrying out in primary care and left with the generous offer of free office space while I worked things out with Appt. I spent just over two years working closely with the DrDoctor team, but it took a few months of taking them up on their offer of a free desk before I started working part-time for them officially. At first, I spent time in the Product Team where I learned to challenge my own assumptions and latterly in the Sales Team where I was inducted into the highs and lows of selling a service into the NHS. The best thing about DrDoctor was always the people - easily the friendliest in the industry - but a close second was the pace at which I learned what it meant to do something innovative in the health service.

Year Here is a postgraduate programme in social enterprise and innovation. I was placed at St Paul's Way medical centre, one of the most innovative and forward looking GP practices in London. I spent my time working on new ways to reduce the rate of missed appointments through the application of behavioural economics to conventional SMS reminders. In just six months I came to understand the value of primary care - but also the challenges that practices face everyday when trying to do their best by their patients. The second part of the Year Here programme is an impact consultancy project. My team worked with the housing association East Thames and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham to develop a social and economic regeneration strategy for the Gascoigne Estate/Weavers Quarter in central Barking. Year Here provided me with my first experience of what it is like to innovate inside the NHS and without this experience I wouldn't have ever started Appt. But the Year Here programme was more than just a stop along the way. Year Here put me in the right environment with the right support and guidance to think critically about my own beliefs and values. For the first time in my life I reflected on what I thought about the complex social issues that our country faces and felt equipped to do something about it.

I was part of a mixed British and Kenyan team that delivered an enterprise development programme to five Kenyan small business owners in Kericho - a small transit town in the South Rift Valley of Kenya. The entrepreneurs I worked with included the owner of a cyber café, a recycled material businesswoman, a tea merchant, a fabric saleswoman and a farmer. Each wanted to start or build their business in a way that benefited their community - this was my first introduction to social enterprise. The programme we delivered taught the skills required for early stage start-up activity - from marketing and sales to customer research and finances. The entrepreneurs put together a business plan over the three month period and pitched for small, 0% interest loans. I sometimes felt a bit uncomfortable giving business advice, when my own business acumen was effectively zero, but our entrepreneurs benefited from the programme and were successful in securing the funding they needed. The loans were used for a variety of uses, including generators to protect the cyber café from blackouts, a greenhouse to grow passionfruit seedlings and a machine that shreds scrap plastic for recycling, so that the recyclable material could be sold for a higher price.

As the line manager of a team of seven resort representatives, I successfully trained and supervised my team during the winter season in one of the worlds most prestigious ski resorts, Courchevel. I worked closely with the resort management to make sure that up to 450 guests per week enjoyed their holidays. We wrote blogs, sold lift passes and helped guest to navigate the resort. We even ran a weekly pizza delivery service and ran a coach service back from an aprés-ski evening in Meribel (that really didn't feel like work). But most of all we skied. We skied a lot. But I think we got the balance right as we managed to beat our sales targets by 40% over the season.

At Nomura the FX middle office was a fast paced environment with a lot of exposure to the front office and a close connection to the risk side of the investment banking business. I worked as part of a global team with presence in Singapore, New York, London, Tokyo and Mumbai and worked closely with all other regional middle offices for many components of daily business. At Nomura I learned what it's like to work in a huge multi-national organisation facing high-stress and long hours. I also learned what it feels like to be a tiny cog in a massive machine and that Investment Banking wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.