I arrived in the UK as a teenager hardly speaking any English. I vividly remember not being able to understand a word of what people were saying - it turned out that the real spoken language was nothing like the recordings I had been learning from! Accents, colloquialisms and the speed with which everyone was speaking was bewildering.

By some miracle I got into a University to study law of all things.. What a ride that was... I remember taking a tape recorder to lectures and then listening to those recordings hundreds of times trying to figure out what the lecturer was saying and then what it all actually meant.

Then by yet another miracle I managed to get a training contract at a City law firm. Everyone was so well spoken and as I was so self conscious of my accent, I spoke very little. In my 360 reviews "unassuming and quiet" was a constant theme at the time.

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In the legal years that followed, I remember life as lots more studying, working hard and having to focus on what really mattered just to keep my head above water.   

From law, I moved onto working at a top tier multi national bank where I learnt a huge amount again. This is where I got the glimpse of the real life implications of regulatory compliance for financial institutions and realised that the status quo was just not sustainable.