Meet Courtney Wright, global mobility specialist at Cummins.
TL;DR: Courtney Wright joined Cummins as an HR apprentice during the pandemic, without a university degree or a clear career plan. Three years later, she’s a global mobility specialist helping employees relocate across borders — and leading Pride initiatives across Europe. Her story shows what a career at Cummins can look like when a company invests in potential over pedigree.
Courtney Wright finished school early. Not by choice: the COVID pandemic cut her A-level exams short, and she went straight into lockdown without a plan. She didn’t want to go to university. She wasn’t sure what career she wanted. And she’d been told by multiple employers that she didn’t have enough experience for the roles she was applying to.
Three years later, she’s a global mobility specialist at Cummins, helping employees and their families relocate across borders. She leads Pride events in her community. And she can jump on a call with anyone, anywhere, with confidence, something she says would have been unthinkable when she started.
Here's how she got there.
Finding HR by accident
During the first COVID lockdown, Courtney connected with a recruitment agency and started taking online courses on CV building and work experience. When restrictions lifted, she did a week of work experience at a local electrical business in Darlington. They offered her a two-year business administration apprenticeship on the spot. “I didn't have a clear plan,” she figured. “So I thought, why not?”
It turned out to be the decision that shaped everything. Within that admin role, she picked up HR tasks, managing payroll for engineers, supporting recruitment, sitting in on investigations with an external HR partner. That’s when it clicked. She didn’t want to do admin; she wanted to do HR.
But when she started applying for HR roles, the answer was always the same: not enough experience. That’s what led her to Cummins. The company has a big reputation in the Darlington area. In fact, Courtney’s own granddad used to supply plumbing services to the site. When an HR apprenticeship opened up, she didn’t think twice about applying. And she got the role.
Going global from day one
Courtney’s apprenticeship at Cummins wasn’t typical. She came in as a global HR apprentice, a setup that’s unusual for someone’s very first role at the company. “I’d never worked globally before,” she said. “I’ve learned so much about different cultures, different regions, and how different legislation works in different countries.”
She also started during a pivotal moment when companies were just beginning to pilot their return to office mandates post pandemic, so the site was quieter than usual. Her manager was based at a different Cummins location in Huddersfield, over an hour away from where she worked.
For someone who described herself as shy and still finding her voice, that could have been isolating. Instead, it pushed her out of her comfort zone. She had to go talk to people, introduce herself, and figure things out on her own. And she wasn’t completely alone.
The mentor who didn't have to show up
Anya Phillip was the executive director of HR for Cummins’ distribution business, a senior leader with a 27-year career at the company. She was based at Darlington and started coming into the office regularly during Courtney’s first months, just to make sure the new apprentice had someone from her team nearby.
“That still to this day blows me away,” Courtney said. “She didn't have to do that. She was probably quite busy, but she made that time to come in to make sure I at least had somebody.” What really sealed the deal for their mentor-mentee relationship was how much they had in common. Anna had faced similar struggles with confidence earlier in her own career — and she’d worked through them over 27 years at Cummins. For Courtney, that was proof it could be done.
“She’s my aspiration for my career,” Courtney said. “If I could be an HR leader like her someday, that would be my goal.” Anna has since retired, but their mentorship continues.
Leaving Pride at work and in the community
Early in her time at Cummins, Courtney joined the European Pride employee resource group (ERG). She was going through her own personal journey with identity and acceptance at the time, and the ERG gave her a space to work through that alongside people who understood.
“It's kind of my little safe space I can go to [for] an hour a month, every month,” she shared. “You don’t have to think about work. You can just be yourself with other like-minded people.”
And Courtney’s participation didn’t stop there. She took a leap of faith well outside of her comfort zone and started a leadership role inside of the ERG. Now, she organizes a yearly Pride event in Darlington with Cummins as the main sponsor. The team sets up a stall, does arts and craft projects with kids, and runs educational activities about inclusion. Volunteers from the local site come out to support it.
“If we don’t go and attend those events and make a stance, then we can’t say that we are an inclusive company,” she said. Inside Cummins, the ERG runs monthly meetings, lunch-and-learn sessions, and deep dives into LGBTQ+ history across Europe. Courtney sees it as one of the things that sets Cummins apart. With over 150 ERGs worldwide, employees can find a community no matter how they identify.
From apprentice to global mobility specialist
After her apprenticeship ended, Cummins went through an HR transformation and restructured the function. Courtney wasn’t sure where she’d land — and then a role in global mobility opened up.
It was a natural fit. The job keeps her global exposure while adding specialist knowledge. And it draws on something she understands on a personal level: what it feels like to go somewhere completely unknown. “No two days are the same,” she said. “You could face very different complex queries for different countries.”
Her approach is grounded in empathy. She keeps regular one-to-one calls with every person she’s helping relocate. She makes sure spouses and family members are included in discussions, because they're giving up jobs and routines, too. And when she doesn’t know the answer to a question, she says so and comes back with the right one later.
“I think honesty is very important,” she said. “I take it away and come back to them rather than giving them a fabricated answer.”
What she'd tell someone considering Cummins
Courtney is direct about this: don’t let your background hold you back.
“Don’t worry about what background you’ve come from, how you identify. That is out of the equation at Cummins,” she said. “The main thing Cummins is focused on is bringing in the right talent.”
She points out that apprenticeships let you earn qualifications while you work, and that the hands-on experience actually made studying easier than school exams ever were. Cummins invested in her from the start, and she was never made to feel like “just an apprentice.”
“When they see potential, they want to invest in it,” she said.
Her long-term goal is to become an HR business partner. But what excites her most is that at Cummins, her career could go in any direction: HR, finance, operations, anything. People stay for 30-plus years and move across the business in ways that wouldn’t be possible at most companies. “It can be really life-changing to have a career here.”
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