In Focus: Diversity in the profession  

'Clients feel you don’t get it until you’ve been in their shoes’

“So I set out on a mission to get my own house in order and to put together a special needs plan for my son which I did.

“I got it wrong, it took years and of course while I was doing that I was thinking ‘this is a great way to meet other parents’.”

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She added that her current work is “incredibly rewarding” because parents are "so worried" about planning for the future.

Industry advice

Gogh looked at how the financial services industry could improve, saying there needed to be wider recognition of talent.

“As an industry, we can recognise that you can get talent from a number of different backgrounds and don’t just put people in pigeon holes,” she said.

“A perfect example of this would be if I came to you five years ago and said ‘I have a business idea, I’m going to talk to the families of disabled children’ and it wasn’t really a trodden path at all people would think that was quite unusual.”

Gogh also stressed the importance of flexible working as a way of encouraging more people into the industry.

“People that I know, mums in particular, they worry about having to leave work early.”

tom.dunstan@ft.com

If you would like to be featured in our New Voices series, or you know someone who would be a good fit please get in touch with Tom Dunstan at tom.dunstan@ft.com