“Building a Better Working World” - An Interview with Imogen Hudson from Ernst & Young

Imogen Hudson started her working life as an insurance broker, before moving into management consultancy with Ernst & Young or EY 2 years ago. After moving through a number of roles, she found herself seeking a new challenge and was inspired when her brokerage firm worked with a consultancy, so much so that she decided to make a change. We talked to her about the challenges of changing your career, the value of networking in the management consultancy sector and the ideas behind Ernst & Young's “building a better working world” principle.

Tell us a bit about working for Ernst & Young.

Working for a big brand has its challenges and rewards. Having a brand stamp on you and being endorsed by a real global player is both a privilege and a responsibility. The company challenges and stretches staff greatly, and provides a difficult but stimulating environment to work with.  So it’s a balance; there are rewards and intellectual interest on one side, with the inevitable stress on the other.

Why do you do what you do?

I started working with a consultancy that came in to help the brokerage firm I was at and was inspired by them, the culture and the issues they were tackling. I like solving problems, fixing things and understanding how things work. And I guess I like helping people to make their businesses better.

What are your opinions on the value of networking in your sector?

In my specific sector, the biggest value that consultants can give is a third party perspective on a problem. The more perspectives you have, the easier it is to give advice and see a problem on the wider scale. Essentially, I need to be able to think about a problem more broadly, which comes a lot from talking to other people about their industries to broaden my own knowledge. Networking also helps with learning how to talk to a wide range of different people and learning to understand other industries quickly. It also provides me with loads of different reference points so that I can do my job more effectively.

EY talks a lot about 'building a better working world'. How do you feel businesses like EY can best work towards this goal?

That strapline has to fit for EY within a really broad range of business activities, covering the entire breadth of what EY does, such as both the consulting and audit sides, etc. It's about asking how can we make you function better as a business? How can we make your contribution to the world better? Improvement and change never happened without people talking to each other. Making big things happen, making big companies move, change and grow takes a lot of collaboration and understanding on all sides. It's about perspectives – how can we learn from other people to make you as a client better by helping you?

And finally, what was your biggest challenge when changing career paths?

I went from having a small team and responsibility to being stretched, pushed and challenged every single day. The better you get, the more and more you stretch and learn. It doesn't get more comfortable. However, I get to solve some really intricate and complex business problems and work with a broad range of clients on a frequent basis.

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