Leadership Academy Review

Insightful and fulfilling experience that all the students on the Leadership Academy were clearly suited to but challenged us and put us out of our comfort zones.

The whole experience had clearly had a great deal of investment put into it, both financially and in terms of time and energy. I was very pleased to be selected but when I arrived I felt they really were there for us; to answer our questions and ensure that we got as much as possible out of the week.

We received a great deal of guidance both on the concept of leadership and on our pathway beyond the Academy which certainly put us all at ease. At the same time, however, we were made to think and put ourselves out there which meant we learnt a great deal from it.

I think I have learnt more about myself during those three days than I have done in the last six months at University. Understanding how I work is of great assistance when it comes to my academic studies and also in stimulating myself outside of those to ensure I grow and remain competitive in the world of graduate careers.

Everything from the evening activities to the specialist day activities were clearly structured with purpose and reason behind them which meant the whole experience ran like clockwork and gave all attendees everything they needed to get the most out of the three days.

Quite literally the fun never stopped. I really enjoyed the challenge of the day activities from case studies to outdoor tests and more in the evening with an open bar and great social events including a night of drumming which really helped to switch off from the day and some great meals where we could chat to the Facilitators and even a Partner Dinner where some really interesting people visited the Academy and told us all about their careers and where we could be in 15 years.

EY brought in external specialists in developing leadership potential, invested heavily into the staff who would be at the Academy and ensured that the whole Academy gave us the opportunity to learn a great deal about ourselves, others and Leadership, not just about Ernst and Young.

Because the Academy was focused on Leadership, the main point was to make us into better leaders not to fill us up with statistics or to give us an experience of a day in the life of an EY employee. It would have been useful to know more about the different service lines but there just wasn't time and what we did do was much more interesting. We have all been given all the emails necessary for us to make contact with the right people within the firm to ensure that we make the right choices should we choose to pursue a career with EY.

It was evident that EY is people focused and that they have a high caliber of employee just from those who we were mixing with. It was a high-energy and extremely stimulating experience and I can imagine that the atmosphere within the company is the same.

At every coffee break and evening activity all of the facilitators (employees of EY brought to the Academy) were available to talk. We also were assigned a specific facilitator who led a small group of us through each day. This gave us a personal contact who knew us well and who we could talk to after the Academy.

We were given a great range of activities from a Partner Dinner to an informal 'takeaway' style meal which allowed for plenty of conversations on different levels about ourselves and the facilitators personal interests to how the partners had progressed their careers to such high levels.

There was a real sense of if 'it works for you, it works for EY' which I thought was excellent. As one of the facilitators said, you might go to a running club or do a Spanish class at a certain time each week in which case it's fine for you to leave in order to get to that. They seem really flexible, at the end of the day so long as you've done your work you can go home but sometimes doing your work will mean going through the night, other times you might be able to leave early.

Without a doubt. In fact, a Women's Leadership Academy has been organised for this Summer which I would highly recommend to anyone who's interested in that.