The fascinating thing about community pharmacy is that there are so many perspectives. Before I joined the industry, I would've thought it was not that dynamic, but then I saw that many changes were taking place and there were many dimensions that I had to consider.

I studied in Sweden where I was born. I did international business and marketing in Gothenburg, then moved to London and got a job in market research and analysis at HSBC. After a sabbatical working for a charitable organisation for a year, I was going back to the bank when I met up with a member of Beta Buying Group - that's when I decided to join pharmacy.

I was persuaded by the culture of the group. It was a dynamic team where your voice counts, your input is valued and you're given responsibility to drive projects forward. Coming into pharmacy was difficult, of course, because my background before that was entirely in the financial industry. So it took a bit of time to understand the culture of the pharmacy world: the way people operate, the nature of the business.

But once I got to know the way pharmacists think then it was business as usual because, at the end of the day, when you talk about marketing and communications and management it comes down to the same principles whichever industry you work in.

I took charge of the Beta Buying Group five years ago and my job is to liaise with members and suppliers, source new members, get new deals and promote our services. We have a team in place that is the brains behind the buying group - a think- tank, if you like - which has pharmacists on board. Their job is to identify the issues that we need to tackle and then it comes down to me and the team to manage and market it. I enjoy the opportunity to communicate to people and that my marketing background brings something different to the group.

Top of my 'to do' list at the moment is trying to communicate to members what PNAs [pharmaceutical needs assessments] are all about. We want to highlight to them what impact it will have on them and their pharmacy operations, and the need to pay attention to the changes that are taking place at quite a rapid pace.

The nature of the buying group is also changing, so we have to ensure that we move with the times. The industry is not what it was five years ago; we need to be looking proactively all the time, making sure we understand the needs and the changes that are taking place, and that we address them appropriately.

We are a non profit making buying group so any income kickback that we get is distributed 50 per cent back to the membership and 50 per cent into charitable causes. We invest in humanitarian projects, education projects and medical projects, both in the UK as well as in third world countries - projects such as building water wells, arranging food programmes or, in the UK, for example, we sponsored a golf tournament where all the funds raised went to cancer research.

I am proud that we have been able to grow so quickly in such a short time and engage in so many charitable projects as a result of driving the Beta Buying Group forward.

In my spare time, my number one priority is trying to spend as much time as possible with my family. And I'm very keen on sports, so I play football on Saturday mornings at 8am, and volleyball. I'm also a teacher at the community Sunday school, where I was principal for three years until last year.

Community pharmacy is so dynamic. There are constantly new challenges and that keeps you driven all the time. And the charitable projects that we are investing in is a driving factor as well. The more financial value that's brought to the Beta Buying Group, the more we can invest in charity.

When you come into the office in the morning you know that the more effort that you put into this buying group, the more value you can generate for people who are not as fortunate as you are. That's the ultimate driving factor for me. I wish we could do more, but that's another driving factor in itself.