Every career takes a different route in. What people bring with them, the people who back them, and how confident they feel putting themselves forward all shape how that route unfolds.
As we close out our Getting In focus for South Asian Heritage Month, we're sharing one final story that reflects the different paths people take into the firm and what helps them find their footing once they're here.
Meet Poorva Prabhu, Assistant Manager in our Economic Consulting team, who joined the firm three and a half years ago. She shares her journey into the firm, the experiences that shaped her perspective, and what Getting In means to her.
Finding her feet
Poorva's path in wasn't a straight line. After completing an undergraduate degree in India and an MSc in Economics at London School of Economics, she worked at a small consulting firm in India, then a policy and impact assessment firm in London, before deciding she wanted a role built specifically around economics.
"That ability to help with real-time problem-solving is what drew me to consulting in the first place, and it's still one of the things that motivates me."
Grant Thornton was Poorva's first time applying to a large firm. Until then, she'd only worked with smaller firms in the UK and India.
"The Economic Consulting team stood out as the perfect combination: a small, close-knit team, but with all the benefits of sitting within a much larger firm." She joined while the team was still growing and has watched it expand both in the work it takes on and the clients it serves since.
"My favourite part of the experience has been the opportunity to work across many different kinds of projects and practice areas and collaborate with other teams within Grant Thornton. I've had a chance to improve my analytical skills, develop coding skills, work with different data sets, and build working relationships with the client team."
Where it started
Poorva's approach to work traces back further than her career. "My parents always valued education and good grades, and they supported me unconditionally, nothing was ever off limits when it came to my education. They have both been my strongest pillars."
Her South Asian heritage shaped how she showed up at work too, at least at first.
"There's a cultural instinct instilled in a lot of South Asian upbringing: put your head down, do good work, become a valuable team member, and don't cause trouble. That was very much my starting point when I began working with my team."
Finding her place
Being the only South Asian colleague on her team took some adjusting to. "My colleagues were, and still are, wonderful people who did everything they could to make me feel comfortable. What made a real difference was seeing so many South Asian colleagues across different teams and levels around the office, it was genuinely comforting." Networking sessions that put her in the room with South Asian women in senior leadership added to that.
Female mentorship has run through her time at Grant Thornton since. "I've always worked in teams led by female leadership, alongside many strong, smart women who are excellent at their jobs and who genuinely have your back." Both her people managers, she says, have gone well beyond the day job: navigating visa and sponsorship processes, backing her development, and prioritising her mental health along the way.
Learning to speak up
"The biggest learning for me has been becoming more vocal about my work, so that people across my team recognise what I bring to it."
The instinct to keep her head down had to shift. "The culture within Grant Thornton is one where good work gets recognised with interesting projects. Learning to advocate for myself along the way has helped me make sure that happens." That's meant speaking to people doing the work she wants to do, showing them, they can rely on her, and making sure someone is in her corner in rooms she's not always in. By her own account, it's the biggest change she's had to make.
It's paid off in the relationships she's built. "It's been 3.5 years now, and I've developed genuinely good friendships with all my colleagues, which is a big part of why I feel I can be completely myself at work." Her team has grown more diverse over that time too, something she doesn't see as incidental.
"Our team has also grown a lot over that time, and now includes colleagues from many different heritages, including more South Asian colleagues, which has only added to my comfort. We've built a genuinely diverse team."
What Getting In means to Poorva
Getting In isn't just about landing the role, it's about the process of belonging once you're there. Access alone isn't the full story. It's meant having equal opportunity to do good work and grow, while also seeing the team around me diversify over time, so 'getting in' became less about fitting into an existing space and more about helping shape a space where more people like me could feel at home too."
Her advice for anyone unsure they'd fit in:
"This is a great environment to make your place. It's a workplace that gives you equal opportunity to do your work, progress, and learn along the way. There are plenty of tools available to you, and no shortage of people willing to help you get ahead. You can be yourself here and find things you can genuinely make your own."
And why stories like this matter to her, especially now:
"It would have meant a lot to hear stories like this earlier in my career. There's real comfort and hope in seeing that someone from a similar background hasn't just found a place for themselves in this professional environment but is actually thriving in it."
There's no single way to start a career, just different journeys shaped by experience, perspective and opportunity.
If you're thinking about your own next step, you can explore our current roles and find out more about careers at the firm below.