I am Shannon Rogers, and I joined the Army at 16 with a handful of GCSE’s and no experience! Over the past 12 years, I have built my career through both operational experience and academic study, completing an undergraduate degree in Psychology taking 6 years of part-time study, and a postgraduate MSc in Employment Law and Human Resource Management, whilst raising two young children.
I began my Army career in the Field Army as a weapons engineer before being selected to transfer into the Diversity and Inclusion Team at Army Headquarters. That move became a turning point for me. I quickly realised that when I shared my perspective as a soldier, it often gave senior leaders a new insight into how policies, decisions and culture are experienced by people on the ground.
That experience led me to design and lead the Army’s Reverse Mentoring Programme. I spent two years pushing for endorsement of a pilot and developed the programme from the ground up — designing the package, advertising it across the Army, securing participants, creating and delivering the training, and building the evaluation approach. Drawing on my MSc knowledge, I developed a robust analysis model, including statistical evaluation, and briefed the findings to senior leaders. The programme was ultimately approved by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for full Army-wide rollout.
What I am most proud of is that I took an idea based on lived experience, evidence and professional knowledge, and turned it into something that is now helping to influence leadership, culture and inclusion across the Army. Gaining the trust of senior leaders as such a junior rank really pushed me to my limits and helped me to grow.
