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Cassandra Ezechukwu describes EY company culture and collaboration.

Cassandra Ezechukwu has experienced the company culture at EY first hand since she joined as an associate in financial services, with expertise in business transformation design. She tells us why the collaboration with colleagues, flexibility, a mix of internal and external projects at various locations, being part of an international firm and campaigns that foster a culture of caring are important to her.

“I studied information technology and information systems and then for my Master’s I studied Financial technology. I feel that I can bring in that educational background a lot into the internal and external projects I work on here at EY especially around project management fundamentals and designing information systems. All of that which has contributed to my growth is also contributing to what I am doing in EY currently.

I was attracted to EY because it’s a multinational firm and I knew that I’d be able to work on cross-collaborative projects. And because it’s such a large firm there would be people from diverse experiences and diverse fields and I knew working with them would help me and improve my career prospects. And it attracted me that there was a multi-national family within financial services and the fact that I get to work with financial services clients and continue learning and growing is really attractive for me.

I remember on my first day everyone was genuinely really nice and even people that were in senior leadership were willing to have a chat with me and ask me how I got here. It’s a really open and genuinely easy environment and the fact that everyone was really welcoming was just so important. That really stood out for me.

I currently work with a team of three people and we work on an external client project for a bank. You also get to work on internal projects and that’s a great way of improving your network within EY and I’ve had that opportunity and it’s been really good so far.

EY has a really great culture and takes care of their employees. Since I started working here we’ve had multiple campaigns like the 'Its Ok!' campaign which fosters a culture of caring; there’s been the ‘It's the Little Things’ campaign about listening and leading and acting inclusively and there’s a lovely campaign where you can reward your colleagues for doing great work - all these things add up to making working at EY great. It isn’t just about senior staff rewarding juniors though. Juniors can reward their seniors also which is great. I think these campaigns are really beneficial for us and sharing more about our personal lives allows for better positive leadership and improving vision within EY consulting.

EY is really supportive of career development. I’ve been working as an analyst and I know that if I want to move out and get a new experience I’ll speak to my career counsellor and speak to the leadership within my team and possibly move on to a project and gain that experience. There is a learning and development team and they do everything from creating training particular to my skillets and EY learning and development encourages you to pursue particular certifications. One of the other significant initiatives is the EY Tech MBA which is run in partnership with Hult International Business School and allows people to navigate the technology, leadership and business challenges ahead. EY is really devoted to our career growth through mentoring and coaching and training and learning.

I’m still learning. You can never stop learning, particularly within financial services as it is so broad. I want to keep growing and progressing my career within finance. My experiences have shaped me to what I am today. EY is very big on innovation both internally and externally. They hold the EY Entrepreneur of the Year as another way of showing their commitment to innovation.

I would highly recommend working at EY to other graduates. You’ll get to work with a diverse range of clients and build your skillets. And working on a global financial services level - the people you’ll get to work with and the experiences you’ll learn - everything will be beneficial in the end. Being exposed to different areas and global integration and global training within EY is just great and I’d definitely recommend that people come and work with EY."