Aisling was born in Co. Down before moving to Dublin for University, She joined Grant Thornton in 2013 is now a Director in Sustainability & Financial Services Advisory. Through this position Aisling works with clients on addressing sustainability challenges and champions a number of sustainability projects, such as The Team Green Network. The aim of the Green Team Network is to address this need and facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration regarding addressing sustainability goals across companies within the Irish Funds industry.

As a member of the Chartered Accountants Ireland Aisling takes her role as a woman in finance and a person of colour in finance seriously. She is currently the chair of the 100 Women in Finance Early Career Committee, co-chair of Chartered Accountants Ireland Ethnicity Network Group and a community mentor for African Professional Network of Ireland.

She has been featured on the Empower Top 100 Future Leader Role Model List (sponsored by YouTube) in 2022 & 2023 and has worked on award winning projects outside of work for this topic. She describes that what keeps her going is seeing in how differently her industry looks compared to when she first joined it.

Through this Aisling has been able to go to events such as One Young World (for the past 2 years),where we met at a talk given by C.D Glin – the President of PepsiCo Foundation. 

It’s an incredible story to read:

1. What was your background in Grant Thornton and Chartered Accountants Ireland that led you to becoming involved in One Young World?

I grew up in Holywood, Co. Down and moved down to Dublin for University where I have been ever since. From a young age I was always interested in what I could do to make a change and in more recent years that has translated into the pursuit of achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. I have a particular interest in gender equality, reducing inequalities and climate change, so, most of my work centres around the intersection of these goals. In addition, I am a lover of live music, competitive sport and culture exchange.

I joined Grant Thornton as a trainee accountant in 2013 initially training in the Restructuring Department where I gained extensive experience over a variety of insolvency assignments. I then transitioned into Financial Services Consulting utilising my deep understanding of banking infrastructure and passion for sustainability to provide strategic advice to Financial Institutions across Europe and in turn allowing me to develop my career in line with my core values.

In 2021 I was selected as the joint Chartered Star (alongside Caroline McGroary) for my work to support the UN SDGs and we both represented Chartered Accountants Ireland at One Young World in Munich. Since becoming a One Young World ambassador I have had so many incredible opportunities from taking part in a Global Youth Enquiry on Climate Change for COP26 to speaking at the IFC Sustainability Exchange alongside speakers such as Mia Mottley & Idris Elba.

2. You’ve previously said that chartered accountants have a key role to play in helping businesses embed sustainability and climate action into their corporate strategy. Can you describe how chartered accountants can do this and if you have any best in class examples from businesses in Ireland?

Chartered accountants are in a unique position of power. We work with businesses across a wide range of sectors providing financial & strategic advice, carrying out assurance and we are regarded as trusted advisors.

Chartered accountants inside organisations—with their analytics skills, critical thinking, scope of influence and organisational understanding—play a central role in integrating business-critical information, introducing and managing better processes and controls, making and enabling business decisions, and reporting to stakeholders in a holistic, integrated way. We need our businesses to be resilient to future climate risk and as such sustainability needs to be embedded into strategy and measured, monitored and assured – all of which accountants are well placed to assist with.

3. You also take your responsibility as a female leader and a person of colour seriously. Can you tell me about some of the initiatives that you’re involved with in both areas and what gives you hope for greater representation in the workforce?

I have been the co-chair of 100 Women in Finance Early Career Committee in Dublin since November 2021 & the first ethnically diverse female to join the committee. 100 Women in Finance is a global network of finance professionals working together to empower women at every stage of their career. Our program focuses on those who have up to 10 years’ experience in the industry and who are looking to build lasting, synergistic relationships. We create an educational and peer-to-peer forum through open dialogue about the current interests and challenges facing working women and financial industry professionals.

Through my involvement with 100 Women in Finance I am also a member of Ireland’s Women in Finance Charter Steering committee. The Charter is an industry-led, government-supported measure to encourage gender diversity in the financial services industry in Ireland and allow financial services firms to devise commitments to progress gender diversity in their firms.

In addition, I am the co-chair of Chartered Accountants Ireland Ethnicity Network Group. I MC’d our launch event in 2022 and moderated a panel discussion on “The importance of having an inclusive profession” with Senator Eileen Flynn, Cllr Uruemu Adejinmi and Shauna Greely. At present, I am leading the development of an awareness campaign on the National Action plan Against Racism (NAPAR) and working with Chartered Accountants Ireland to embed NAPAR’s objectives into the Institutes operations.

Since 2022, I have been a community mentor for African Professional Network of Ireland (APNI) providing free career guidance & advice to ethnically diverse individuals in Ireland. Most recently, I took part in a panel discussion on a “Career in Financial Services” at the APNI Career Day alongside Augustin Assanday (Head of Investment Services, Waystone) & Christina Simiyu (Divisional Financial Controller, Markets & Treasury, Bank of Ireland).

Internally, I am a founding member of Grant Thornton’s employee resource group & successfully contributed to the re-design of our ED&I Strategy during 2021/22. I am the Ethnicity & Culture Pillar lead coordinating a group of c20 employees. During 2022 I organised our first Culture Night – an in-house event to celebrate the diversity of culture across the firm (over 65 nationalities represented). It was a resounding success with over 250 employees attending. In 2022 we won ‘Outstanding Employee Resource Group of the Year’ at the National Diversity and Inclusion Awards and in 2023 we were the largest professional services firm to be awarded the Investors in Diversity Gold Accreditation. In addition, For the last 10 years I have been a mentor with Grant Thornton as part of the Trinity Access Program. The purpose of this partnership is to create pathways into the professional world of work for young adults from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds who are often ethnically diverse. In my role as a mentor, I offer advice and encouragement to these young adults at a time where they are transitioning from school to a college environment. I help to ‘demystify the suit’ and provide an insight into my career path to date in order to challenge traditional views of opportunities available to both women and ethnically diverse individuals in Ireland.

What gives me hope? I guess in the first instance it’s actually starting to see the increase in visible representation in my own industry. In Grant Thornton our workforce has changed dramatically since I joined over 10 years ago and I really welcome the change. The big challenge is to ensure this diverse talent is supported at every step of their career – at the moment we are still lacking in representation (both from a gender and ethnicity perspective) at senior leadership levels across the industry and indeed across all positions of power in Ireland.

4. At One Young World Belfast you acted as a moderator for an interactive session interview with Angelia F Williams and Aminka Belvitt about why representation matters particularly in the area of women of colour in leadership. It was a lively conversation, what were some of your key takeaways?

It was also noted that it is important to be open to feedback in order to grow but it is most valuable when you also know your own worth and are tuned into your core values.

5. Apart from your own session, what were some of your key take-away’s from One Young World Belfast in general?

There are always so many interesting conversations and nuggets of wisdom to take from One Young World be it from keynote speakers, delegates or other attendees in casual conversation.

Some of my key takeaways over the week were:

• A good support network is really important – invest in the people who energise you and build meaningful relationships

·   Your mental health is vital to your success – you cannot pour from an empty cup. Be sure to care for yourself and this also allows you to be more compassionate and give better to others.

• One of the key recurring themes was action is better than perfection. I strongly believe that all actions you take (no matter how big or small) can make a difference in someone else’s life – some of my biggest breakthrough moments have come from one singular conversation. I think it is important for people to recognise the power of their words and actions and look to use that for the better, especially when it comes to supporting those who are disadvantaged by a system that wasn’t designed for them to succeed.
   

6. Can you tell me more about The Green Team Network that you co-found?

The Green Team Network was born out of the Irish Funds Grant Thornton Sustainathon in 2020 and is a forum for connecting and empowering change towards a sustainable environment within the Irish Funds industry. I am one of the co-founders alongside Aedin O’Leary, Suzanne Senior and Magda Supernat.

In the Irish funds industry we have 150+ firms with 16,000+ employees all trying individually to improve sustainability and at different stages of this journey however there is currently no central forum to bring these firms together to share ideas, leverage knowledge and bring about real collective change in relation to impact of their offices and employees on the environment. The aim of the Green Team Network is to address this need and facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration regarding addressing sustainability goals cross companies within the Irish Funds industry. Our idea is that members of this network will pool their ideas, resources and campaigns which will result in savings on time, effort and cost across the industry. We want this to be a platform that will facilitate the implementation of all sustainable ideas over time such as those submitted in Sustainathon 2020.

One of the key projects driven by the Green Team Network is the Green Pledge. The Green Pledge is a tool aimed at encouraging and supporting firms in the Irish funds industry to take steps to reduce carbon emissions and take action on sustainability issues that affect them. The Green Pledge draws from the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (specifically Goals 7 and 13: Affordable and Clean Energy, and Climate Action) and Paris Agreement goals and is designed to support the steps the Irish funds industry could take towards achieving these goals. There are 111 pledges across 13 different categories such as carbon footprint, environmental management systems, catering, travel, paper, events/conferences, utilities, policy and education, vendor management, sustainable communications, waste management, water and volunteering/donating. To participate in the Green Pledge, fims indicate from the list of environmentally sustainable pledge actions included in the above outlined categories. They indicate whether they will pledge to take the action, already have it in place or whether the action is in progress. Participants will be given a score based on the number of actions selected, whether the actions are in place or in progress and any weighting attached to a particular action. The higher the score the higher the green level rating a firm will receive. At present we have 21 firms signed up to the Green Pledge.

We regularly organise educational events and other initiatives such as tree planting and national clean ups. This year we ran the first ever Funds Industry Climate challenge in partnership with Global Action Plan and had participation from 2,300 participants across 23 teams logging over 200,000 climate smart actions across the 12 day challenge and saving 173 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

As the network grows and the collective communication and conversation begins, we would hope that together we can use our influence for even more impactful change as the industry grows… one voice instead of multiple.

7. Outside of your day job can you tell me more about what you and the team at Mossor Music are doing?

Music is my first love and on a personal level I see the Arts as an avenue for expressing emotion that can otherwise be difficult to articulate and an incredibly valuable asset to our society.

Mossor is a conduit for those who want to use music as a means to give back. They go beyond the singular model of fundraising by creating a way to build philanthropy into the music industry. Mossor songwriting retreats bring together a talented and highly curated group of songwriters, artists and producers to create a catalog of demos that, when placed, will benefit the mission of the chosen foundation by allocating a portion of the publishing to the cause. Mossor’s ultimate goal is to bridge the gap between non-profit initiatives and the music industry. It’s been fantastic to have the opportunity to work with the Mossor team providing strategic advice utilising my finance & sustainability background alongside my passion for music!

8. What awards or accolades have you won in recent years?

I have been featured on the Empower Top 100 Future Leader Role Model List (sponsored by YouTube) in 2022 & 2023. These global lists champion trailblazers across businesses who are driving positive change for people of colour in business.I have also represented Ireland at an International level.

I have also represented Ireland on an international stage winning a World Cup silver medal with the Ireland Womens Senior tag team in Australia.

9. What companies or speakers particularly impressed you from One Young World Belfast? (you’re not allowed to say your own!)

As always I was blown away by the delegate speakers and I particularly enjoyed the session featuring Indigenous Young Leaders on what indigenous communities can show us about Sustainability.