Yeah.

I had some great support from my manager and from the company itself in terms of going through the exam process and really pulling out opportunities to within the role itself to to fall into some more work around kind of balance sheet reconciliations and bank reconciliations and things that you need to do to start looking at practical experience it was at that point that my manager had a kind of chat with him it gave me a sabbatical year off and it was that It was that point where myself and my wife decided to travel Australia and New Zealand.

So that's how Australia comes into the mix.

No, so that's how it comes, that comes about.

Yeah, that came about basically because I'd finished my ACCA exams and looking for the next kind of step after you finish all your exams, think, okay, what do I need to do next? And I had got married and we bought our first house together and it was just how things fell into place we decided to go on a working holiday visa to australia new zealand for 12 months that was the plan 12 months it was only going to be 12 months and the manager at the time john he he said look i'm going to sign this off for you it's about a year that's fine he goes but i'm not going to see you back here i don't expect you to see you back here because you know It's a great place.

You're going to experience amazing things.

I said, John, don't be silly.

a lot

How did that opportunity come about?

Yeah, so once I had finished my exams in 2006 and my manager at the time at Zurich, yeah, we just had a kind of conversation around taking a sabbatical year, take a bit of time out after doing four years of studies.

I just got married and, you know, so there was a right opportunity to take a bit of time out.

I was given a sabbatical year at Zurich to take 12 months off to go traveling with my wife to Australia and New Zealand and one thing that my manager said at the time is yeah look I'll sign you off for a year but I don't expect you to see you back which was quite funny so I said no no don't worry I'll be back after 12 months we're only going traveling for a year and as you know Laura one of the things I do talk about is how that opportunity to travel has turned into six years in total in Australia where I was able to use the kind of ACCA qualification and then take up a corporate kind of accounting finance role in Australia, which was a game changer, really, because I went through the corporate ladder and from being a corporate accountant to then managing a team to then being a group reporting manager.

It was great.

I was put on a leadership development program and also completed a diploma in management as part of that whole leadership development program that the company put me through.

So six years in total, and it was a hard decision to think about leaving Australia and coming back home to England.

But can you give us a quick snapshot of your current role and what that looks like day to day?