MY AMBITION IS TO...

Katie McCormick, business consultant at Pinnacle Growth Group.

Igraduated with a first-class BA (Hons) in English from Queen’s University Belfast in 2021 and immediately began my career as a business analyst at Pinnacle Growth Group, a Lisburn-based consultancy that specialises in business growth. I’ve always enjoyed learning and, with the support of my employer, am currently undertaking a part-time MSc in marketing at Ulster University Belfast.

What attracted me to Pinnacle Growth Group was its close working relationships with clients. I love that we offer straightforward and honest advice to support business growth for multi-sector clients right across Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Great Britain.

In addition, I found Pinnacle Growth Group’s personable and collaborative culture attractive, as well as its support for my desire to enhance my professional and personal development through additional qualifications and courses.

I was promoted to the role of business consultant after just under a year and a half at Pinnacle Growth Group. During my career with the consultancy, I’ve worked across a variety of service areas and have engaged with a wide range of organisations based in various industries. We support clients across three key pillars: finance for growth; business improvement; and sales and export growth.

Developing close working relationships with clients has helped me to identify and access grants and funding opportunities, and to write successful applications to win funding to accelerate their business growth. Most recently, I worked alongside entrepreneur Ashleigh Averell of I Brand Everything to secure funding for her new e-commerce website.

During my time at Pinnacle Growth Group, I have also worked closely with public sector clients. To date, I have been involved in project and programme management, the completion of stakeholder engagement, the production of high quality evaluations, the development and delivery of new programmes, and the conducting of independent reviews and analysis with action plans. Throughout, I have enjoyed meeting and working alongside new people to realise a shared vision.

Much of my time at work is dedicated to bid writing. I was initially daunted when given the opportunity to write a tender bid, but quickly learned that many of the skills I developed during my time studying an undergraduate degree in English were applicable – specifically written communication, research and analysis, editing, attention to detail and time management. I find bid writing an extremely rewarding process and am currently fine-tuning my ability to write effective bids.

I have also been balancing work with the completion of the part-time MSc in marketing at Ulster University. I have found the course to be extremely valuable and have been able to apply what I’m learning to real life scenarios at work. It has, for example, given me the tools to conduct marketing plan workshops and develop marketing strategies for our clients at Pinnacle Growth Group. My employer is incredibly flexible, which has allowed me to improve my professional and personal development without needing to take time off work. I would thoroughly recommend studying alongside working as it has provided me with invaluable learning that translates into real results for our clients!

My ambition is to continue to progress within Pinnacle Growth Group and to take advantage of all the personal and professional opportunities that the organisation presents me with. As someone who was unsure of what they wanted to do whilst at school, I have learned a tremendous amount about my innate skills and interests by simply stepping out of my comfort zone, and my employer helps me to do that every day.

I have just launched a new blog called Hello Working World, where I will be discussing the realities of life after university. I hope that my journey will help other graduates to transition seamlessly from students to young professionals, and inspire them to have an open attitude towards learning and new possibilities!

To read Katie’s blog, visit: www. helloworkingworldblog.blogspot.com

To find out more about Pinnacle Growth Group, visit: www.pinnaclegrowth.group