Kalwant Dhindsa (kalwant.dhindsa@bayer.com) is Senior Corporate Compliance Counsel for Bayer PLC in Reading, UK.

I’m not a teacher by background, nor did I ever plan to be one. I wanted to be a lawyer from a young age. I fell into teaching by accident. I took on a part-time role as an associate lecturer in law for the Open University in the UK, and later, I became a teaching assistant at my children’s Sunday Punjabi school (a language from northern India). Whilst they learnt, I helped the other parents cook the children’s lunch.

However, as great as my chapatti (a round flat bread) rolling skills were — and they were good — I was on a greater mission with a fellow mother to help teach at the Punjabi school itself. After much perseverance, we eventually broke through the invisible door into the teaching side of the school.

We started our careers as “the resource team,” and quickly my photocopying skills were noticed by a teacher who requested that I assist in her classroom as a teaching assistant. I also stepped in as a teacher when needed, but for me, it became a turning point in my professional career as a compliance lawyer.