When Kike Oniwinde won an internship at a prestigious investment bank straight out of university, she knew she deserved it. She’d always worked hard, leaving school with A*s and had even trained as an athlete to the point where she represented Great Britain in javelin throwing. She was used to seeing herself as successful and knew she was good enough to be working at the bank. That wasn’t even a question. 

But a few months in, things started to change. Oniwinde stopped feeling as confident in her abilities – and in herself. “I felt uncomfortable and was always on edge. Even though I knew I could do the job, I started to question myself. I felt awkward, like I didn’t want to be there. Even though my degree and everything said I could enter this industry, I started to feel that I didn’t want to.”

There wasn’t one specific thing that made her feel this way; rather, a series of small moments that all contributed to her growing lack of confidence. “I’d come from a state school in east London, where I rarely felt out of place. But in the workplace, I felt no one looked like me. My ‘buddy’ was a white guy who went to my uni, but that was our only correlation – our backgrounds were really different. The buddy system was meant to give support, but it didn’t give me any.

“I felt like I was thrown in at the deep end. I was so out of my comfort zone. With some of the topics of conversation, I didn’t know what to say – about skiing or restaurants I’d never been to. I moved on to one desk, and the intern who was leaving was a young white man. He’d banter with everyone and they loved him. When I got there, the banter wasn’t happening. I didn’t get it. But I could see the difference in how they reacted to him and to me.”