12 Mar 2026

This year, we chatted to Natalie Hill, Learning and Development facilitator at TfW. Natalie talks about her career journey so far and challenges she’s overcome in her career. 

Tell us a bit more about your role. 

I’m a learning and development facilitator who specialises in behaviours. As part of my role at TfW, I focus on leadership development, providing insights coaching and workshops for teams to better connect and understand each other. 

I also provide coaching throughout the business and am currently studying towards my ILM level 7 executive coaching and mentoring qualification. 

In essence, my role is to guide our people through measures such as workshops, coaching, and learning towards bringing out capabilities, ensuring they operate at their best version and create a culture of continuous learning and reflection. 

Tell us about the experiences that shaped who you are today. 

The biggest influence that shaped who I am today is becoming a young mum, which meant that I had to grow up quickly. My daughter Ava I always say saved my life, all the negativity I used to focus on about myself no longer seemed important as I’d never felt a love like it. Having Ava pushed me to want to do better, to role model the same determined behaviours and work ethic my mum installed in me. 

However, graduating from university and being the first in my family to do so was one of the proudest moments of my life. Standing there with my parents beside me and Ava, who was only six years old at the time watching. I know I was showing her what determination can achieve and there’s no set path to life but finding your own way. 

Natalie with her daughter, graduating in 2016

Natalie with her daughter, graduating with a masters in 2021

What challenges have you faced, and how did you navigate them? 

Balancing my career with being a mum left me with ‘mum guilt’. How I navigated this was reminding myself that this was all for her, so I could show her what she could achieve and ensuring I was making a difference to where I worked. 

Which achievement has meant the most to you, and why? 

Winning the Investing in People and Development award at the National Rail Awards last year with my colleague Mark, after years of working on leading it meant the absolute world to me. Anyone who was there would have seen my genuine shock! I think it’s because we worked so hard and knew the powerful impact it was having to people within TfW both personally and professionally that not everyone would always see. Being rewarded at that scale meant the absolute world and to celebrate that with Mark and everyone who supports us was the best feeling! My leading yellow and green self was just overwhelmed positively at this. 

How does International Women’s Day influence the way you think about your work and community? 

It always gets me to reflect on my daughters’ journey; she’s 15 and is very interested in going into engineering.

I want her to know that she’s valued for who she is and what she can bring and is not treated any differently because of that. It’s why I’m such a big advocate for behavioural awareness in organisations as when our future generations are entering the workforce, they are already more emotionally aware than we realise and they are brought up in different time to us. It’s our duty to adapt to that emotional understanding and nurturing these young minds in the positive way to truly bring the best out in our people.  

I want to continue to feel proud of the company I work for, that it mirrors my values and that it would be safe for anyone working here to be themselves.