Studying at the School of Management made me a better person. The Think Ambitious slogan stuck with me; I use it a lot during my work.

After graduating from Bath, I stumbled upon Chinese social enterprise, A Better Community (ABC) when looking for professional consulting experience.

ABC provides consulting services to other social-purpose organisations in mainland China. I started off as a project consultant and worked my way up to Business Development Manager at our Hangzhou branch. Here, I help clients understand their problems and how a consultant can help. I also work with Head Office, to share our consulting methodologies and training materials with the public.

Social purpose organisations in mainland China need professional advice about management practices. Many are looking for a more sustainable way to support themselves. Working with those organisations, and facing tough decisions daily has helped me grow into a strong woman in the consulting world.

When at Bath I was in One Young World (OYW), a society for young leaders helping bring in social change. Being able to do the same thing in my hometown is a dream come true.

In OYW, I looked into inequality in education, to support students in rural regions. Some students in poverty don’t even have access to a computer. Last spring, I attended the One Young World summit, workshopping with students to try and tackle education inequality.

OYW taught me a lot about social issues, such as inequality and climate change, that I can bring into the professional environment.

In 2021, ABC changed its strategic goal to empower social-purpose organisations. So, as well as advising organisations on resourceful ways to invest their money for social impact, we do in-depth research into social topics. This means we can provide a fully-rounded consulting service.

I could just give money to charity, but being a consultant makes a much bigger impact. If the charity knows the best way to spend its funds, it makes a larger impact on society.

We worked with a professor at a well-known Chinese university earlier this year to develop a system that will train staff and students on social innovation. By giving them core guidelines on training, we made a bigger impact on the community than doing it ourselves.

I’m still early on in my career and dreaming big. I love the impact I make when consulting and want to work in the environmental, social and governance sectors. Mainly, I want to do good for society.

To me, ambition is to have an influence on the people around you and care about how that affects them. In practical sessions, our professor would always ask us ‘Would you want your decision to come out as headlines in the New York or Financial Times?’. Every time I make a difficult decision, this helps me put it into perspective.

My advice to students is to value your time at university and use it to become a better person for the world. I’m still in touch with the School as an Alumni Champion, to give back to the University. I’m proud to be a Bath graduate.