“Build a level of resilience…” In conversation with Rhianne Williams

Before we start with your career background, can you tell us about your international upbringing?

My career path and life in general is what people call ‘squiggly.’ To start off with, I grew up internationally – I’m originally British but I grew up in Vietnam and Dubai, and went to different international schools, which provided me with extremely cultural and fruitful experiences.

It was an incredibly inclusive and empowering environment, where the sentiment was very much encouraging us to be world leaders! This inspired my ambition to want to work for the UN or the Foreign Common Office in the UK, so I decided to study History at the University of Southampton with a focus on counter terrorism policies, under the Obama, Clinton and George Bush era.

You certainly have high ambitions! So, what happened? Did you apply?

Yes, I sent in an application to work in the Home Office, to work under the Home Secretary – at the time, Amber Rudd. It was a rigorous process, but I got through to the final stage. My interview happened to be on the same day as the London Bridge terror attack, which is just down the road from the Home Office. We proceeded with the interview during lockdown procedures with sirens going off, which meant each time the siren rang out, I had to stop my answer, wait for the siren to stop and speak again. I honestly think I got offered that job partly because I stayed so calm and collected in the middle of a terrorist attack. This was my dream job and what I always wanted to do but five days later, the onboarding officer called me and said: “because you have lived in Vietnam this is considered a high risk country from a UK standpoint and therefore we will need to withdraw the job offer.” That was truly a devastating experience but I do think everything happens for a reason and this was the start of my journey to building resilience.

What a huge shame and incredible bad luck… what did you do next?

Initially, I just ‘fell into’ a paralegal job in Bristol. It got me on the phone quite early on in my career speaking to people who were quite distressed, putting them through court proceedings and litigation, so there was a lot of hands-on experience that served me later on.

I then wanted to move to London and did what a lot of 20-year-olds do in London and tried my hand at recruiting. I joined a friendly and supportive recruitment firm who put me on the financial service audit desk, and I enjoyed working with internal auditors. I was head-hunted for a bigger recruitment firm who were working with all the big banking clients in London, especially within audit risk and compliance so it felt like a no-brainer to join them. I really enjoyed it and stayed there for two and a half years.

I was then head-hunted again, this time by my current boss Dan Harding at Protiviti, who offered me the opportunity join as a business development and account relationship manager, so my role would be helping to build our portfolio of clients within the internal audit risk and compliance financial services space. Instead of speaking to clients about recruitment needs, I now have the opportunity to help solve client problems through innovative solution offerings which has led to much more fruitful and intellectual conversations with clients. I have learned so much from Dan and my colleagues who have really helped me expand my knowledge and understanding of corporate governance. My experience in recruitment, helped me get to a position now where I am very comfortable speaking to senior individuals at a younger age than most.

Can you tell us about any adversity that you have faced in your career?

Throughout my entire career, I’ve always worked in male-dominated sectors and at a number of points, I’ve looked around the room and I’m the only female there – and that can still be the case now. One thing in particular which really stood out to me was trying to stay authentic to myself in a male-dominated environment and not become a different version to fit in with other people. I think that is a product of my upbringing, when you grow up internationally, I had to move countries, cultures, continents and you become a chameleon because that’s the only way you can survive. I am proud to say that I have now embraced my uniqueness and feel confident in most settings to express my opinion and add to the conversation.

What is the best piece of work-related advice you’ve been given?

I hate the idea of selling so I’m much better at my job if I focus on helping solve client problems. When I work closely with clients I make it my mission to network them with other professionals and peers in their industry; introduce them to our subject matter experts at Protiviti so they can talk to someone who can relate, whilst also providing bench-marking examples. If a client has a problem, it’s not about trying to sell a Protiviti proposition it’s understanding the root cause of the problem, what keeps the client up at night and how can we help using a client focus strategy. Learning this technique from my colleagues has made me a more successful consultant.

Have you seen any improvements in the gender gap?

There’s been some over the years but I genuinely feel we’re a long way off. As mentioned above I was a delegate for the UK UN Women CSW68 conference, which is the Commission on the Status of Women hosted by the United Nations. This was a two-week period where multiple conferences were run in the UK, abroad and the UN HQ in New York where delegates discuss a theme. This year’s theme was the economic empowerment of women so gender pay gap was brought up on most of the panels I attended. The statistics are shocking – they believe that we probably won’t achieve gender parity around the pay gap for another 50 years, and that’s even if we follow the right initiatives. I’ve seen statistics around the lack of funding around women solely owned businesses and how they are less likely to receive funding from institutions, compared to men. For me, it’s encouraging seeing these debates are happening at a national level because ministry officials, governors, policy advisors are trying to make a difference. However, what is really critical is having these conversations in your everyday life and talking about these issues and trying to find solutions in a way that you can be impactful in the short-term. I’m really seeing value in having those one-to-one or in groups with people in your everyday life around the gender pay gap and what we can do to better bridge that gap.

Do you have any advice for the next generation of women?

Yes, I do, and it relates back to a tough moment in my life when I lived in Bristol. This was a very dark time for me and I was extremely depressed and demotivated. My old history teacher from my time in Vietnam – Sanjay Perera – who I considered a very close friend and a personal mentor, knew the struggles I was going through. He unfortunately passed away last year so that’s why I really want to pass on these words. During that time, he wrote to me and said: “Remember everything you do now in Bristol – every single mundane, boring, dull, weird, depressing and happy thing that you do because this will help form a narrative of who you are and who you will be – relish the moment.” He was shining a light at the end of the tunnel for me by highlighting that this experience will build a level of resilience that I didn’t know I could manage. I personally wanted to impart this wisdom for anyone – men or women – who are going through personal or professional struggles.