I was so privileged to win the 2009 Public Sector award. I found myself feeling a greater sense of responsibility to live up to the award and reassess how I could pay back and support others. In my journey since I have sought to focus on three values – compassion, collaboration and confidence – and that these should inform and shape what I do and how I do it. Compassion means that I seek to understand and connect with people, placing trust at the heart of my relationships. The generosity of kindness flows from this. This essential oil fuels my professional and personal networks. Collaboration follows, what you put in is more than matched by what you get out of the relationships you invest in and those you help. And finally, confidence. The award reinforced this, strengthened my own determination and clarified my own sense of ambition. It inspired me to pursue the jobs I wanted, get them and then make them my own. But in doing so, I realised that others need to believe in themselves too, to find their path, so it gave me the confidence too to share my story and seek to empower others to believe in themselves.