Kelly

Property Finance

BA History, University of Manchester
Joined Tesco September 2005

When I graduated from university I was keen to work for a FTSE 100 company. Being the third largest retailer in the world and with the opportunities and diversity on offer, the Tesco Finance Graduate Scheme seemed the best place to start my career.

I was particularly attracted to the offer of a professional financial qualification alongside a two-year training programme, allowing me to gain a broad scope and understanding of the business as a whole. I valued the opportunity for early responsibility and the prospect of a management role on completion of the scheme.

In Finance there’s a wealth of opportunity for exposure to a variety of departments. Every area of the business has a Finance support team, so people on the scheme are placed in roles which allow them to experience first hand how different areas of the business operate. By the end of the scheme I will have worked in three different areas of the business in three different roles. Through these rotations there’s a real drive to ensure that all the graduates are equipped with the necessary skills to progress within the company and qualify through CIMA.

My first specific role involved looking after head office costs for the Property department, which meant I was actively influencing decisions on the use of the budget. In terms of accounting, my job involved preparing management accounts, planning, budgeting and forecasting, and target reporting. Very early on I was expected to have individual meetings with directors, which made me realise how much the graduate placements had to offer.

My second role was working within Grocery Dotcom, helping look after a £1.3 billion business which is currently the largest and one of the most profitable e-grocer’s in the world. My responsibilities included preparing budgets and management accounts, producing weekly and monthly reports for the senior management team, and any ad hoc analysis required to provide further insight into the business.

My third and current role is in Tesco Direct, our new non-food business. Working in a newly founded business is a real challenge because the usual established processes do not exist. I’m designing new reports and providing analysis and insight that has never been done before. Most of the role is project based which means every day is different and the work I do enables senior management make decisions that directly affect the business. It’s great going into stores and being able to see how my day-to-day work affects the business.

My fourth and current role is an overseas assignment based in Shanghai, China.  I have always wanted to work abroad at some stage in my career and it was one of the influencing in factors in applying for a global company like Tesco.  I made it clear in my career discussions that I was keen to work abroad once I had completed CIMA and emphasised my passion for Asia, so when the role in Shanghai came up I had my bags packed right away! 

Being in China has offered me the opportunity of seeing Tesco operate in an environment that’s very different to the UK - it’s really interesting to see the difference between customers shopping habits and the products we sell.  The role I have out here is focused around cost control which is essential to ensure that we keep the price of our products low in a market which is very price sensitive.  Because of the high profile nature of the role I have periodic meetings with all of the Tesco China leadership team and the CEO of Tesco China and it’s great to feel like my analysis is directly influencing the decisions the business makes.  I feel very privileged that I have been able to experience retail in one of the big emerging powers of the 20^th century and one of Tesco’s biggest growth countries in the next few years.