Profile: Danielle Walmsley
From apprentice to partner! Danielle Walmsley loves to travel the world – but when it comes to work, rest and day-to-day play, she’s rooted in Coventry and proud of it.
“Accountancy seemed liked a good fit and I’ve never looked back. It’s the perfect fit for me. “I was just focused on the apprenticeship to begin with, to get through the exams and then I’d have a qualification and an opportunity for a career. But I was 16 so, at the time, it was just a case of having more money in my pocket than my friends who had stayed at school! “My apprenticeship was through Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber Training and it was great and helped me through to the next phase of my career.
Danielle is a partner in the Coventry and Warwickshire office of accountancy firm Azets, which is based at Middlemarch – close to Coventry Airport.
“But, when I started, we had nine of us in our office and I had to make five rounds of tea a day – it doesn’t take an accountant to work out how much that is!
She joined the business (although in the guise of Fox Evans) as an apprentice after leaving school – Tile Hill Wood – at the age of 16, having just completed her GCSEs.
“I was the office junior so I did everything – as well as my main job – but I thought it was a brilliant grounding.”
Danielle was rising through the ranks at Fox Evans when the company was bought out by Baldwins in 2016, and that’s when her career really started to take off. Within three years, she was made an associate director and in January 2021, she became a partner. “When I left school at 16, I applied for an apprenticeship at a local firm in Coventry called Fox Evans,” said Danielle. “I trained through there and qualified when I just turned 21.
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“I always liked numbers and maths at school. When I got to 16, I was going to stay on at school and do A-Levels but I just wanted to work and earn money so I looked at the apprenticeship route.
The takeover by Baldwins, and subsequently Cogital – which later rebranded to Azets, saw colleague numbers rise dramatically. From 22 staff when Danielle started with Fox Evans, she is now part of a company that employs 2,500 people across the country. The Coventry office is home to 53 staff and Danielle is playing a key role in helping to raise the profile of the business in the region. “It was when Fox Evans got bought out by Baldwins in 2016 that my career progression really started,” www.cw-chamber.co.uk
