Sarah Brown is Claims GRC Manager at Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Management Limited
When Sarah Brown began her Level 3 Compliance and Risk apprenticeship with CSA Learning, she already had an interest in regulation and governance - but what followed became a personal and professional transformation far beyond her expectations. Now part-way through her Level 6 qualification, Sarah’s journey shows the true power of apprenticeships in shaping skills, careers, and confidence.
Sarah has always been driven by curiosity and growth. What made the difference, she says, was her organisation’s investment in her development, “I love learning. I love that my company has invested the time in my personal and professional development.” This support gave her the foundation to take on two demanding apprenticeships while working full-time in a fast paced, highly regulated industry.
Before starting her Level 3 apprenticeship, Sarah worked in a coordinator role— she was aware of the wider compliance and governance work but only lightly involved. As she gained new knowledge, skills, and confidence through both hands-on experience and her work on her apprenticeship, her responsibilities started to grow.
And that growth didn’t go unnoticed. Since completing her Level 3 apprenticeship, Sarah has:
Received promotions from Coordinator to Governance, Risk & Compliance Manager, to Head of Claim Support and Control
Taken on leadership responsibilities and become a team manager
Become involved in regulatory change projects, risk management, and departmental control assurance
Earned the trust of colleagues who now seek her expertise
“I quickly noticed an increase in people coming to me for support as I now have the knowledge and skills they are looking for.” Her apprenticeship didn’t just teach her new content — it accelerated her career trajectory.
Sarah is clear that the impact isn’t limited to her own development. Her strengthened professional standards have improved the quality of outputs for her department, and she brings back fresh perspectives informed by peers across multiple industries who she trains alongside in workshops as part of her apprenticeship journey.
CSA Learning is an Ofsted good-rated apprenticeship training provider and welcomes a diverse range of roles from a diverse range of sectors. Sarah’s exposure to fellow apprentices from sectors like healthcare, energy, finance, collections, and even the arts, also broadened her understanding of the subject: “The conversations we had during workshops were probably the most formative parts of the learning process. Different sectors bring different perspectives—and that shapes how you think and then act.”
Having completed Level 3, Sarah has found herself able to approach the higher-level learning (Level 6) with increased maturity and strategic awareness.
She describes feeling more reflective and more focused on listening, supporting newer learners, and embedding leadership behaviours— these make up some of the core elements of the Level 6 programme: “Having Level 3 in my back pocket means I have the confidence to sit back in the L6 workshops and absorb and approach this level of learning differently.”
Sarah’s journey hasn’t been without its challenges. Balancing a demanding role along with off the job study proved difficult at times, particularly during her Level 3.
On reflection Sarah now knows that she pushed herself too hard. She took the decision to pause her course twice to try and regain balance and reset. She speaks very highly of the support she received from her CSA tutors and her training team which helped her make certain decisions and therefore made it possible for her to continue her learning journey.
This experience also led to an unexpected but significant personal discovery. Sarah received a diagnosis of ADHD during her level 3 journey, prompted by the realisation of how she was learning and working. “I rewrote my entire portfolio one week before submission. When I reflected on that afterwards, I knew something wasn’t right.”
Armed with new self-awareness, and the support she received as part of her diagnosis and the additional support CSA learning offer as a provider, she has been able to approach her Level 6 with clearer boundaries and better balance.
Sarah credits a lot of her positive experience to the CSA Learning team and the systems they use to support her recently diagnosed neurological condition. She describes her tutors as supportive and knowledgeable and credits the CSA Learning support team who guided her through pauses, restarts and gave her the flexibility she needed when work commitments intensified. She also particularly liked the training management platform, BUD, which she found to be intuitive and far superior to previous systems she had used to track her journey and progress.
Sarah’s message to organisations considering apprenticeships is simple - There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. Investing in your people will build loyalty and connection, energise employees and encourage innovation. It is a great way to develop future leaders and directly improves a departments quality and performance.
“The investment in staff make them feel valued. They gain new insights and that shapes a business. If you positively engage in the journey with them, everyone thrives.”
Following the success of several apprenticeships over the years, her company now has apprentices across data analytics, leadership, internal audit, and more — firm proof of the value they’ve seen.
Sarah’s journey continues as she works towards completing her Level 6 apprenticeship. She also recently celebrated yet another promotion – her second since joining the company and taking on her apprenticeship work.
Her success demonstrates what is possible when enthusiasm meets opportunity—and when businesses truly invest in their people. It also demonstrates the importance of an apprenticeship provider that supports and builds inclusive learning environments through its use of technology and systems which flag additional learning requirements. In Sarah’s case, CSA Learning’s bespoke, empathy-driven learning support improved Sarah’s learner outcomes and sustained her engagement throughout her learner journey.