Nikki is an Executive Assistant based in our London office.  She currently supports the CCO and Marketing & Sales Team.

Everywhere you turn these days, the world seems full of problems:  there is the ever-widening gap between rich and poor; there are wars in many parts of the globe; and the risk of nuclear and climatic disaster continues to increase.  On top of all that, it is almost impossible to keep up with the sheer pace of change that is taking place.  No wonder the number of people suffering from anxiety is increasing!   One solution, at least for individuals, might be to go back to traditional values: develop and maintain strong family and community relationships and live by strong personal moral principles.  Even if it has not been part of a deliberate strategy to deal with the problems of the world, Nikki has done just that - and it is standing her in good stead.  She is currently very happy, both professionally and personally.

Nikki grew up in Essex in a very close family, something that has been very important.  And in her case, relationships with the whole family have remained strong.  She has a lot to thank her parents for.  Her father was a Bank Manager in London and her mother worked in a school; both placed more importance on their children having a happy and fulfilling life, than on earning lots of money.  They put no pressure on them to follow any particular path, but they did instil in them sound moral values and the importance of being able to look after themselves and pay their own way.  They were encouraged to find part-time jobs and over the years Nikki worked at a variety of jobs from waitressing to retail.  It was a happy and stable childhood.  She did well at school and had lots of friends.  Her family lived in a Close, a residential street without a through way, and after school she would always be playing with friends in the Close until it got dark.

For as long as she could remember, her ambition had been to be a primary school teacher, so at some point during secondary school, she did work experience in a school.  It was enough to put her off teaching for life – and now that her lifelong ambition had dissolved into thin air, she had no idea what she wanted to do. Her mother came to her rescue and suggested she might think about being a legal secretary – her aunt had done that and it had turned out well.  Nikki at least knew she liked working in an office, so she decided to enrol in the ILEX Legal Secretary Diploma. She enjoyed the course and, during it, did work experience in a small immigration law firm in Baker Street where her uncle worked. When she graduated, she was offered a job in the firm and worked there for around two years.  Again, she enjoyed it, but it was a small firm, less than 10 people, and she was young and looking for something more.  She wanted to meet people, be in a different environment, preferably something with international connections.  So, she contacted an agency and they came up with a position in an international firm at Docklands, assisting a team working on a large enforcement programme for a multi-national client.  It sounded just the thing.  An interview was arranged and she was offered the job.  The firm was Rouse, and that was 17 years ago.

During that time, she has had various roles, moving from Secretary to Paralegal to Executive Assistant.  She also married and had two children.  When her daughter Freya was born in 2015, Nikki just couldn’t see how she was going to be able to continue working in London and look after her baby so thought about leaving.  At that point, Rouse moved from the Docklands to Liverpool Street and she was invited to the office opening party.  There, Stuart Adams, who has been with Rouse since the beginning and can properly be described as a pillar of the firm, asked how things were going and she told him she just didn’t think it would be possible to come back to work.  His reaction was: “Hold on Nikki, we must be able to do something”.  Sure enough, something could be done and, long before Covid when it became the norm, Nikki was able to work from home.  She is enormously grateful to Rouse for that; in return, she was determined to work hard and do her best for the firm.  She didn’t think she would ever stay at the one firm for long, but now she is glad she has.  At Rouse, she has been able to grow - and she has made a lot of very good friends there.  

Over the years, Nikki’s relations with her family have remained as close as ever.  When she was growing up, her family had a caravan at Walton-on-the-Naze, a family seaside resort on the North Sea coast in Essex, and spent a lot of time there – in fact, that is where Nikki met her husband Mike, who comes from a similarly close family.  He is a builder and works with his father.  He’s good at his job and doing well – and he is very hands-on with the two children, Freya who is now nine and Tommy who is five. Nikki has two sisters, and Mike has one sister, and all are married with children about the same age as Freya and Tommy and there are 9 cousins in all.  They see each other a lot and often holiday together.  Nikki and Mike are aiming to bring their children up in the same way they were brought up. Obviously, a lot of time is taken up with family activities these days, but Nikki reads as much as she can – mostly crime fiction.  And she has a personal ambition: to write a novel, probably a crime novel, not with the idea of publishing, but just for the pleasure, and the challenge, of doing it.  Watch this space!