Ambassador Oli - Transcript

My name is Oli. I'm currently working at the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office based in London.

I came across the Civil Service Fast Stream when I was looking at different graduate programs. And when I was in my final year of university, I was going through all these different series of graduate applications, and that was one that stood out to me.

One of the incredible benefits of working in this job is the sense of pride you get from working on national-scale problems. To be at that level of your career and working in tens of millions or hundreds of millions of pounds, sometimes working on billion pound budgets, is unique. I think partnering that with the investment that they put into their young people, both from professionalising their skills through a chartered accountancy qualification, but also across a wider learning and development model, has been an incredible partnership to experience at such an early stage in your graduate career.

How would I describe the Government Finance Function? It's not an employer, it's a network of colleagues who all work with an interest in finance. And so what that might mean is they work across different areas, different job roles, but they all come from a common background of having an interest in finance and putting finance at the heart of decision-making.

And what that means across government is it enables us to be connected across different departments. It opens opportunities to move across different departments. For me personally, the things that I've been able to understand from the Government Finance Function is navigating what my career could look like, whether that's working on long-term strategic issues, the day-to-day operations of finance, or being that trusted finance partner within a team. I'm

 motivated by the fact I can keep changing jobs and continue to learn even once I've left university, and that was one really key driver in what keeps work interesting.

If your preconceptions of what finance is around a numbers game, it's complicated, it's only for people who've studied accounting, you can wipe those stereotypes because we've got friends from English Literature degrees, Geography, STEM subjects, Maths, and Accountancy.

But that diversity of thought is what makes you a really valued member of a team.