I started my professional career as a single parent who returned to education as a mature student. Although these were tough times, I learned two key life lessons which have shaped my career aims. First, education truly does have the power to transform lives and secondly, I love making this happen for others. After graduating, I started out teaching but couldn't make it pay and so moved to my second favourite love, research. Working for a fast paced market research company helped me to develop effective management processes and practice my psychology knowledge, testing out which theories worked and which didn't in the real organisational setting. Here I learned, through experience, ...