Meghan Gallagher

I’m Meghan Gallagher, I started working for Baker Tilly two years ago in the Leeds audit department. I came straight after school, after I’d finished my A-levels, I’m doing my AAT qualification.

Q. Why did you join and what appealed to you about the firm?

I was interested in starting out in accountancy so I came to the firm to do a month’s work experience and basically the career just progressed from there. I liked the fact that it was a mid-tier firm so we had a large range of clients that, I mean this year, for example, I’ve worked on a limited company with a turnover of over £100million, everything from that to sort of working for academies, schools, farms. There’s such a wide range of projects to work on but yet still with the firm’s size I get to work across the whole audit department. So not just doing the same job everyday. I get to do quite a range of activities.

Q. How was the induction, what have you learnt and how have you been supported?

As part of my induction process I learnt all about Baker Tilly on a national level; the firm as a whole, its strategies, aims, goals and where I as an individual fit into that. It felt great to know from day one that I was part of their overall strategy. Specifically, the Leeds audit department has always been really welcoming and enthusiastic with a real can-do attitude. They’ve always been really interested in my work specifically.

After the initial induction process, I went straight out on audit completing some of the easier and simpler tasks that were involved as part of our audit field work. Since then it’s been great to see my progression within the department. I’ve actually started to work as a more senior level of staff, coaching some of the more less experienced members. So it’s been great to see that as I’ve progressed I’ve also progressed within the audit department as well.

I’ve just recently become AAT qualified. At times it’s been quite difficult to juggle my work from Baker Tilly and my college work at the same time but I’ve had a lot of support, not just from my training line manager, but also from other colleagues even as high up as partners who are always interested in where I’m at with my qualification and any difficulties that I’m having.

Q. How do you see your future and what do you like about Baker Tilly?

I’m hoping to progress within the audit department as well, start to work a lot more often as an audit senior and hopefully an audit manager and then whatever’s next. But I like to know I’ve got the full backing of Baker Tilly and the opportunity to do whatever I want to do within the firm.

I’d recommend Baker Tilly mainly because of the diversity of the projects, each week is different, you get to meet different clients, different challenges and we get to look into different businesses and see what drives them. But as well as a great work atmosphere there’s also a social life as well. I’ve made lots of great friends out of Baker Tilly and my career is going places.