Kaleigh Farrar

Whilst wanting to use my business experience and degree, alongside my role at Lancaster City Council I decided to train and qualify to do high quality nail artistry.

I invested £2000 into my business and advertised myself and my work. I continue to gain clientele and have since made £5000 in gross profit over 9 months.

Although this isn’t something that I would pursue full time, I am incredibly proud of my work, expertise, and ability to directly show my skills as not only a business woman in the UK and now in Canada.

This role consisted of being a part of the income management within Lancaster City Council’s social housing department. I was solely responsible for the following:

- Invoicing rechargeable repairs, ground rent and management expenses, and service charges affiliated with council owned leasehold properties.

- Producing monthly and quarterly reports detailing what charges were outstanding and how much monies were recovered.

- Liaising and contacting debtors to chase payments or arrange payment agreements.

- Producing annual leaseholder statements affiliated with invoices.

- Navigating and managing Excel spreadsheets using formulas to gain critical analysis of funds and information.

Within this role, I was able to recover over a quarter of a million pounds for Lancaster City Council. I feel my direct attitude to complete tasks was key to this contribution. Due to the nature of the role and the councils customers, it was imperative to approach the work with empathy and willingness to listen and respond to customers and tenants with compassion. Although this was maintained, I was firm and confident in my ability to recover funds.

I make an effort to highlight my experience within my family business when applying for jobs. I am incredibly proud and grateful to have come from such a successful multi-million pound book wholesale and retail family business that has been a huge part of my career.

I started working for my father aged 12 and maintained my work during school holidays, time off during my degree, and for a period of my gap year.

I worked during the pandemic managing online sales from picking and packing orders, to directly assisting customers. During this time, we saw sales increase by 900%.

After finishing my degree, I worked in one of the shops as an assistant, and also managed all social media platforms, advertising the business in new ways.

• During my gap year, at 18 I moved back to Canada and worked for Starbucks. I thoroughly enjoyed how social the job was and providing a high standard of customer service. I was offered the role of Shift Supervisor, but unfortunately had to decline as I was moving back to the UK.