How has your family’s history influenced your professional journey?

Family history vs professional path Please, Rita.Shall I continue?

Please.Oh, it's quite far!

A compass!Then, how do you do this?So,we have to align this one with that one.

Well, I have this in my emergency kit.If you haven't done it yet, I recommend preparing an emergency kit.

The compass comes with the following question: "How did your family's story influence your professional path?" That's a good question.

I come from humble families, from Serra das Minas.

Both my parents had two jobs, to give my sister and me a bit more comfort.

My father worked at a bank and sold books for Círculo de Lectores.

I went to a university and had to explain to the students what Círculo de Lectores was.

I told them it was like a Fnac, but door to door.And they understood.

My mother was a special education teacher and sold jewelry goods.

I studied all my life in public schools,and all my life I heard my parents tell me that I had to have a job with a future,a stable job that will give me a good salary,a job that somehow offered me a stable life.

It was around tenth grade when I had a class called T.O.E.at the public school in Mem Martins, and I had a teacher who talked to me.

I did really well, I got 19 out of 20. He said: "Rita, if you really like this,you should go into auditing, because you'll work a lot and you'll make a lot of money." And those words from my teacher made total sense to me, because they were in line with what my parents always told me:"You need to have a stable job with a future." So, working hard.

We all do that.Earning a lot of money sounded like a fantastic possibility to me.

So those words from my teacher became almost like my first career plan,without me even knowing what a career plan was.

It wasn't a structured plan.I went looking for the only college in Lisbon that offered a degree in auditing, which was ISCAL.

I was the first person in my family to go to university.

I didn't have my parents to help me decide which would be the best college to attend.

But I chose ISCAL, which was the only one that offered a degree in auditing, and I graduated from ISCAL and joined Deloitte.

Just like my teacher said, I worked a lot, a whole lot.

Earning a lot of money was relative, I made less than one thousand euros,back then it was 175,000 escudos.

And I think my family's story influenced me a lot,because both my parents started working very young.

My mother came from Guarda to Lisbon to work in her godmother's house and study.

From my parents, I know what it means to make sacrifices in order to reach your own goals. I always had the will to make my parents proud,to achieve more, to go further. So I've always tried hard to be a good student, I always wanted to chase my dreams,to somehow make them very proud and thrilled to say that I was their daughter. To make them feel happy to know that I was pursuing my dreams, trying to go further and achieve my goals.

So, I have a lot to thank my parents for: resilience, adaptability,that drive to go further, for never clipping my wings,as we say in Portuguese, and for always supporting me in going after everything I set my mind to.