Matt Trenholm

Current Employer/Organisation Name

PwC

What have you been doing since leaving Exeter, and what are you doing now?

After six weeks of virtual training, I am now part of the Delivering Deal Value team at PwC. The team focuses on ensuring clients get value from deals activity and the projects tend to be shorter in order to get deals done. As an Associate, I spend my time working on research, attending client meetings and helping develop the firm’s recommendations.

Why did you choose this career? And what do you enjoy most about your work?

I chose this career because of the variety of projects it brings and because it gives me the opportunity to work with lots of brilliant people from both PwC and our clients. This variety also means I have to be flexible and projects can often move quickly.

Please tell us if you were a member of any societies, groups or sports clubs?

My main extracurricular activity at university was Exeter Student Nightline where I was a listening volunteer in my first year and then a committee member in years two and three. I was also Question Editor for ExeQuiz during my third year.

What did you enjoy most about your programme and what was the biggest highlight?

I enjoyed the variety of topics that I was able to study while at Exeter in the History department and beyond. My favourite of these modules was a Special Subject in my third year on the history of internationalism.

What did you enjoy most about studying here?

I most enjoyed the ability to pursue my interests and the flexibility for this interests to change as I went along.

Why did you choose to study at Exeter?

I chose to study at Exeter because I loved the city and the campus within it. It felt like a proper university experience and the History course was right for me as well.

What skills and experiences have been most useful for your career?

The skills and experiences that have been most useful are definitely time management and personal discipline. Consulting is a fast-moving industry and even in my first week, I was given tasks across multiple projects and expected to get them done. This was compounded by working from home due to Covid and I needed to be on top of everything.

What advice would you give to a current student who wishes to pursue your career?

My advice to a current student who wishes to pursue my career is to take every opportunity that you can. I took part in two internships through the university as well as volunteering for Oxfam and being on committee for Exeter Student Nightline. This has given me lots of different experiences to draw from and I learned a lot from them. PwC do not look for a specific academic background and instead want to recruit people who bring diverse perspectives – the more you do, the more diverse your perspective is.

What are your plans for the future?

My plans for the future at the moment are to finish my graduate programme which will last two years. After that, there are plenty of opportunities for advancement within PwC and I will also evaluate what my career goals are at that point.