Profiles: Helena Senior
Meet Helena...
Helena Senior joined PAG in 2021 via the Kickstart scheme and initially supported our Kickstart efforts as a recruitment assistant, before moving to her current role as an associate consultant in the growth team. She has a BA in English Literature from Edge Hill University and an MA in English from the University of York, and, following her studies, briefly worked as a Secondary School English Teacher.
Helena is autistic and proudly advocates for the community often sharing her experience and expertise with colleagues at PAG. She is also known for organising monthly quizzes to challenge PAG’s trivia skills and sharing her love of all things Eurovision with the team!
Helena is autistic and proudly advocates for the community often sharing her experience and expertise with colleagues at PAG. She is also known for organising monthly quizzes to challenge PAG’s trivia skills and sharing her love of all things Eurovision with the team!
What kind of projects do you work on at PAG?
So, I work in the growth team at PAG, and my focus in particular is on business generation. This mean engaging with both new and old clients to find out how PAG can support them with anything from trust growth to funding applications.
A big part of my role involves liaising with all of the other teams at PAG to make sure that everything is running smoothly and to participate in strategic planning to make sure that our processes are as efficient as possible. It’s an ever-changing environment so I’m always looking for ways to improve things and make life easier for both myself and my colleagues!
I also get involved with some marketing and copywriting which I love; I particularly enjoy writing for the website as I get to flex my creative muscles here!
I also get involved with some marketing and copywriting which I love; I particularly enjoy writing for the website as I get to flex my creative muscles here!
Do you have a project that you are particularly proud of or enjoyed working on and why?
My absolute proudest project is the PAG newsletter. This was something that Tom Legge had been wanting to do for a while and when I joined the growth team, I was eager to take on the challenge and make it happen!
It’s taken off way more than we every expected it to which is amazing, and I love seeing it continue to grow! The first few issues it was mostly just Tom and I working on it, but now we’ve got contributors from across the business, so you really get to see how much incredible expertise there is at PAG!
I do have to give a shoutout to Vince and Tina who’ve made some stunning graphics for the newsletter; I tried to make a graphic once and it looked a bit like something you would make on Microsoft paint in school!
Why did you start working in consultancy?
Honestly, it wasn’t something I planned on doing. I left teaching pretty quickly after deciding that it wasn’t the career for me, and I was looking for something different. I’d spent the last few years being so focused on my goals in teaching that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do anymore.
I joined PAG through the Kickstart Scheme and worked on that team until the scheme ended. I’ve always known that writing was a strength of mine, so I made an effort to reach out to the growth team before I joined and wrote a few pieces for the website so, when I eventually made the move across it felt like a natural fit for me and I’ve been here ever since!
It’s been a huge learning experience and there are still things I’m working on getting to grips with, but I absolutely love what I do and it’s amazing to work with so many talented individuals who can all bring different strengths to the table!
I joined PAG through the Kickstart Scheme and worked on that team until the scheme ended. I’ve always known that writing was a strength of mine, so I made an effort to reach out to the growth team before I joined and wrote a few pieces for the website so, when I eventually made the move across it felt like a natural fit for me and I’ve been here ever since!
It’s been a huge learning experience and there are still things I’m working on getting to grips with, but I absolutely love what I do and it’s amazing to work with so many talented individuals who can all bring different strengths to the table!
What’s your favourite way to relax after a long day at work?
I’m sure everyone on the growth team will be able to predict my answer here! My favourite thing to do after work is play Sims 4 – it’s my absolute favourite game because I get to be creative and make stuff. I also like to put music on in the background, I have quite an excessive collection of CDs that we’re working through at the moment!
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
I don’t know if it counts as advice, but my mum always says that ‘weird is just a side affect of awesome’ and I feel like that’s a pretty good principle to live by!
Do you have any other fun stories from your time at PAG?
I think my favourite PAG story is from last Christmas; It was my first PAG meetup, so I didn’t know people very well yet and I was a bit nervous. I was also one of the only people staying in London overnight. I was really hungry and one of my colleagues ordered Mexican food to the hotel for me! It was really lovely and absolutely made my night!
What’s the last bit of content you fell in love with?
I have terrible taste in TV and film, but music wise I can definitely recommend listening to Dusty Springfield. I was listening to her greatest hits the other day and she just blew my mind with how talented and versatile she was.