WeAreTheCity’s Rising Star Awards are now in their eighth year.
The Rising Star awards were introduced to showcase the UK pipeline of female talent below management and to create female 100 role models across 25 different industries and professions.
Over the year’s, the awards have recognised over 700 women across the UK and India.
In this ongoing series, we speak to our winners about life after winning a Rising Star award.
We spoke to Tegan Duffy, who won a Rising Star Award in the EA & PA category in 2021.
Hello I am Tegan, I am 23 years old and from Essex. Before I started my career at Baker McKenzie I completed my A Levels in Business Development, Personal Business Finance and Sociology at a sixth form college near where I live in Essex.
Before I started my A Levels I was set on becoming a hairdresser but that quickly changed once I started my A Levels and I realised my skills are in organisation.
My career at Baker McKenzie started in September 2016, I joined the firm at 19 years old as a Legal Administrator Apprentice. I was one of the first legal administrator apprentices at Baker McKenzie. During my apprenticeship I completed my Level 2 CILEx qualification. My contract was for 2 years and I was so ready and determined to complete my course, I completed all my exams and coursework and qualified within a record time of 1 year and 4 months.
After qualifying I applied for a Legal Administrator job within the firm’s IP, Data and Technology team in January 2018. As the only Legal Administrator within my PA team, I supported a range of Trainees to Mid-Level Associates and supported the Senior Legal PAs on departmental tasks. Whilst being a legal admin I realised I wanted to get more involved with tasks for senior members of the team and wanted to challenge myself further and move to the next step of becoming a PA.
After being a Legal Administrator for one year, I applied for a Legal Personal Assistant role within the team and was successful in January 2019. I can proudly say that I had moved up three job levels within 3 years and was still only 21 years old.
Fast forward to now, I have been a Legal PA for just over two years supporting a variety of levels within the team and covering a range of colleagues within our department. I currently support 3 Partners, 2 Senior Associates, our BD Manager and our Knowledge Lawyer. I enjoy these responsibilities and I am determined to carry on climbing the PA job ladder.
How did you feel when it was announced that you’d won a Rising Star award?
HUGE sense of pride, I was so shocked, excited and most importantly enormously proud of myself. The fact of being nominated to go onto win was a massive accomplishment. I still can’t quite believe that ME, yes me is a Rising Star Winner!
Please tell us what has happened in your career since winning the Rising Star award?
I felt like a celebrity! The amount of newsletters I featured in internal, I even made it to the London office wide newsletter! After winning the award, I have wrote an article that was published on the Career Ready website, an internal interview that was posted on LinkedIn and also featured on C&C search intranet.
Through winning the award, I feel I have gained so much more confidence and motivation to just keep pushing and thriving further up the PA career ladder, I will one day get to the top.
What advice would you give to someone else going through the award’s process?
My one piece of advice would be honest and campaign yourself. Show all the amazing accomplishments that you go above and beyond in your day to day job. Showcase yourself to be the best there is and make it interesting.
What tips would you give to our other members to enhance their careers?
One top tip is just go for it! Just keep going, do the best you can do and always bring your strong skillset to the table. Bringing your own personality/skills to your day to day work life can have a huge impact on the way you work and how you develop within your team. Make yourself stand out from the crowd.
