Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast
By Future Faces Chamber of Commerce
Future Faces: The Young Professionals PodcastJan 29, 2024
Alice Kinder | Becoming a leader in the legal sector
In episode 29 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from Alice Kinder, senior associate solicitor at Bexley Beaumont.
Alice is also the youngest president in 204 years of the Birmingham Law Society, as well as last year's winner of the Greater Birmingham Legal Young Professional of the Year award.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Alice about her career in the legal sector, especially her role as the current president of the Birmingham Law Society, and the importance of leadership for young professionals.
Alice also offers a special insight into her views on empowerment and the female voice in the business community.
If you would like to get in touch with Alice, you can find her on LinkedIn.
Louise Teboul and Avni Ahuja | Fostering an environment for leaders
In episode 28 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from leadership experts Louise Teboul and Avni Ahuja.
Louise and Avni are both key figures at Common Purpose, who provide transformative learning experiences to professionals, in order to give them the skills, mindset and spark to make a difference.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Louise and Avni about the importance of leadership, and how young professionals can foster a working style that will help them to move forward in their careers towards being leaders of their sectors.
Louise and Avni also give a special insight into how Common Purpose can provide leadership advice for professionals, including their Legacy Programme.
If you would like to get in touch with Louise, Avni and the team at Common Purpose, please visit their website at commonpurpose.org
Amanda Jackson | Practicing mindfulness and resilience
In episode 27 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from mindfulness in the workplace expert Amanda Jackson from Beacon Learning and Performance Limited.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Amanda about Mindfulness and Resilience, and how we can incorporate them into our daily lives through something as simple as folding our laundry. Amanda gives a special insight into how all people have different resilience limitations, and how mindfulness practices can be used to benefit our mental health. If you would like to get in touch with Amanda and the team at Beacon Learning and Performance Limited, please call 07969 776075 or email info@beaconmentalhealth.co.uk. You can also find Amanda on LinkedIn.
Rebecca Mander | Exploring Imposter Phenomena
In episode 26 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from leadership coaching expert Rebecca Mander from GuruYou.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Rebecca about Self-Doubt and the Imposter Phenomena (otherwise known as Imposter Syndrome), and how young professionals can tackle these feelings in order to persevere in their careers. Rebecca also gives us a special insight into the Bounce Forward programme, as well as what our young professionals can expect from our Resilience and Mindfulness professional development event, taking place on 12 March at Mills & Reeve, as part of our Bounce Forward mini-series. If you would like to get in touch with Rebecca and the team at GuruYou, please call 0121 270 4300 or email rebecca@guruyoucoach.com. You can also find Rebecca on LinkedIn.
Amy, Sarah and Sophie | Introducing the committee
In episode 25 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from two of our fantastic Future Faces vice presidents - Amy Jacklin and Sarah Griffiths.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to the VPs about why they wanted to join the Future Faces committee, and what they are looking forward to getting stuck into most about the upcoming year.
We also hear a special insight from Sophie about her role as Future Faces manager, and what she is looking forward to about the upcoming year.
Adam, Harry, Will and Jasmine | Introducing the committee
In episode 24 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from some new faces on our fantastic Future Faces committee - Adam Gadsby, Harry Paige and Jasmine Caine.
Our new faces are also joined by re-elected committee member, Will Crawford.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to the group about why they wanted to join the Future Faces committee, and what they are looking forward to getting stuck into most about the upcoming year.
Kasim, Freya, Faye, Jamie and Tom | Introducing the committee
In episode 23 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from five members of our brand new Future Faces executive committee, including our President Kasim Choudhry and new vice-president, Freya Dearman.
Joining Kasim and Freya are new committee members Faye Jacklin and Jamie Gibson, as well as longstanding committee member Tom Bower.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to the committee members about their own journeys with Future Faces, as well as what they are looking to bring to the network in the next year.
Zaylie-Dawn Wilson | Winning the GBYPY awards 2023
In episode 22 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from Zaylie-Dawn Wilson, head of Creative Partnerships at Birmingham Hippodrome and overall winner of the Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year awards 2023.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Zaylie about her career journey into the Creative Arts sector, through to winning the Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year 2023. Zaylie talks about her awards journey, from the application process to her judges interview, as well as what it has been like for her since she won her award.
Zaylie also offers a personal insight into being a working mother, with how she has juggled having a young baby, spearheading the Creative Partnerships department at Birmingham Hippodrome, and applying for the awards.
Tara Attfield-Tomes and Georgie Butler | Creating a mentoring relationship
In episode 21 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from Tara Attfield-Tomes, founder of PR agency EAST VILLAGE., and Georgie Butler, associate director at Blackberry Events.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Tara and Georgie about the importance of being both a mentor and mentee in a young professionals' career, and how young professionals can access a mentor through the Future Faces network.
Tara and Georgie offer a personal insight into their own mentor relationship, and how the mentoring journey contributed to both their careers.
Faye Jacklin and Leon Thomas | Advocating for diversity and inclusion
In episode 20 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from Faye Jacklin, assistant manager at Claritas Tax, and Leon Thomas, Media and Partnerships consultant at Pearl Comms.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Faye and Leon about the importance of diversity and inclusion, and why businesses must invest in their work spaces and people in order to create a diverse and inclusive environment.
Faye and Leon offer a personal insight into their own career journeys, and how ensuring the businesses they work for are equipped to deal with people with diverse abilities has been a key part of choosing their career paths.
Alex Bishop | Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace
In episode 19 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from Alex Bishop, co-head of Shoosmiths in Birmingham.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Alex about the importance of Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace following Shoosmiths' move to their new offices, and what businesses can do to ensure their employees feel like they are being included and listened to.
Alex offers an in-depth insight into the design process behind the new Shoosmiths offices at 103 Colmore Row, including everything herself and co-head Beth McArdle considered in their design decisions with input from their fellow employees, and why each design decision was so important.
John James | The history of the BYPY awards
In episode 18 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from one of the prime movers of the BYPY awards, John James.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to John about the history of the BYPY awards, his involvement in it, and why it is so important for young professionals to be involved in awards, such as the upcoming Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year awards 2023.
John offers an insight into his life and career in Birmingham, and a personal reflection on his and other prime movers' involvement in bringing the BYPY awards to the city.
Laura Thursfield | Defeating Imposter Syndrome
In episode 17 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from previous BYPY awards winner Laura Thursfield on this month’s theme of Imposter Syndrome.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Laura, director and chartered financial planner at Mazars, about winning the BYPY awards in 2018, and how Imposter Syndrome had an impact on building her career after winning the award.
They talk about how Imposter Syndrome feels, how to try and overcome it, and how important it is for young professionals to apply for the upcoming Greater BYPY awards (applications close on Monday 10th of July.)
Laura offers an in-depth insight into her career journey, and how winning the awards presented her with opportunities she wouldn't have thought to be possible.
Liquid | Creating your personal brand
In episode 16 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from social media and brand experts Clare Genner and Chloe Baker on this month’s theme of Personal Brand.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell talks to Clare, head of social media, and Chloe, senior account director, from Birmingham-based agency Liquid about personal branding.
They talk about best practices, how to manage it effectively, and how young professionals can maintain a positive and strong personal brand both for themselves and for their business.
Clare and Chloe also offer an in-depth insight into building a personal brand and how it has changed over the years, especially through the Covid pandemic.
Sheila Lord | Being aware of stress
In episode 15 of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, we hear from health and well-being expert Sheila Lord on this month’s theme of Stress Awareness.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morell talks to Sheila, founder of BMR Health and Wellbeing, about stress, including the main causes, how to manage it effectively, and where young professionals can go to access help with any stress-related problems in both the workplace and at home.
Sheila also offers an insight into her own workplace mental health journey, how she learnt from mistakes throughout her career, and advice she has collected along the way.
Rebekah Taitt | Being a female leader
In our newest episode of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast, one of the region's leading women in business joins us to discuss this month’s theme of Leadership.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morell talks to Rebekah Taitt, regional development director for the Midlands at Lloyds Bank, about being a leading woman in the business sector- including how she got to where she is in her career today, and what advice she would give young aspiring leaders in the business sector.
Rebekah also offers an insight on being a black female leader in the business sector, and how she hopes to see more representation in the future.
Digital Innovators | The power of lifelong learning
One of the region's leading training providers joins us to discuss this month's theme of Lifelong Learning.
Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morell talks to Harry Paige, centre manager at Digital Innovators, about learning opportunities available to young people - including the ability to develop soft skills which they can then put into practice in the workplace.
They also discuss the power of mentoring as a learning experience for both the mentor and mentee.
And Harry offers an insight into how Digital Innovators are working with young people to help develop solutions that will help businesses with their skills requirements.
Hannah Miller | The purpose pursuit
Sidekick founding director Hannah Miller joins Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell to discuss the pursuit of purpose in work and daily life.
Future Faces – the young professionals’ arm of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce – has adopted the theme of ‘Purpose’ for the month of January.
Hannah started Sidekick with an aim to work with organisations, teams and individuals who are looking to discover their strengths and understand their purpose.
Here, she provides fascinating insights for young professionals into how to be more purposeful, know their strengths and, in turn, become a more effective leader.
Kasim Choudhry | Introducing the new Future Faces president
In the latest episode, we introduce the new president of the Future Faces Chamber of Commerce.
Kasim Choudhry has taken the reins as president of the young professionals' organisation - succeeding Jaccy Datta.
He joins Future Faces manager Sophie Poduval-Morrell - herself new to the organisation - to discuss his plans for the next two years.
We learn about Birmingham-born Kasim's background, his role with education and training provider the Pathway Group and, as a self-confessed cooking fan, his favourite culinary dish.
Mohammed Kasujee | Career pivots, quantum leaps and how to ace interviews
Mohammed Kasujee is a career coach and business mentor who helps ambitious young professionals make “quantum leaps” and rewrite their career stories.
In this episode of the Future Faces podcast, the MK Career Solutions founder provides some top tips for young professionals on making career changes, how to ace interviews and taking the daunting step from full-time employment to becoming an entrepreneur.
He tells the Chamber’s Press & PR manager Dan Harrison about his own decision to leave a high-powered job in medical sales to pursue a more fulfilling career – and how he has used that experience to help other young professionals.
Find out more about Mohammed Kasujee:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammed-kasujee/
https://mkcareersolutions.com/
Ingrida Vengalyte | Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year 2022
The Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year for 2022 is the guest on episode nine of Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast.
Ingrida Vengalyte received the prestigious award in front of 400 people at Future Faces' annual dinner and awards, where she was also crowned the Future Face of Sustainability.
In this episode, Ingrida tells Future Faces vice president Kasim Choudhary about discovering her passion for sustainability and the environment in her native Lithuania - and how it set her on the path to a successful career with global solutions provider Jacobs.
She also discusses the work she is conducting around STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) and her ambitious plans to make Birmingham the most active STEAM city in the UK.
Bal Atwal | Why being a legal professional in Birmingham is special
Bal Atwal is a true champion of Greater Birmingham’s legal sector.
As well as working as an in-house solicitor for West Midlands police, he is involved in a number of professional organisations including Birmingham Solicitors Group and Birmingham Law Society – as well as the Future Faces Chamber of Commerce.
In this episode, Bal – who was the Future Face of Legal in 2021 – talks to Future Faces committee member Davies Okeowo about his career path and why Birmingham provides so many opportunities for people entering the legal sector.
Having trained at an international law firm and qualified at a global law firm before moving to an in-house role, he has plenty of expertise and advice for aspiring lawyers on potential career pathways.
Gymshark | How language style and communication impact on our behaviour
A learning expert from global fitness brand Gymshark joins us to discuss how language and communication impact on our behaviour.
Jaccy Datta, Future Faces president, is joined by Gymshark’s learning designer Gemma Dickens for a discussion about how communication towards other people and our own internal dialogues cause us to behave in a certain way.
Gemma also talks through the principle of cause and effect - the relationship between two things or processes when one causes something else to happen.
Gymshark, the Solihull-headquartered global fitness brand, is a patron of Future Faces.
Paragon | What are behavioural economics?
The latest episode of ‘Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast’ explores the principle of behavioural economics.
Host Claudia Congrave is joined Jo Caley, senior insight manager at Paragon Banking Group to discuss this concept.
Listen to find out more about the idea behind behavioural economics and how Paragon have incorporated this into one of their projects.
Jo also discusses the EAST framework (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely) which is applied to influence day-to-day decision making.
Midlands Air Ambulance Charity | Saving lives, resilience and working with business
The latest episode explores the work of the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity - the Future Faces Chamber of Commerce's charity of the year.
Host Claudia Congrave is joined by the charity's partnerships executive Abbie Hawkins, critical care paramedic Fay Pollock and PR and communications executive Becky Read.
Listen to find out more about the work of the MAAC, the missions and critical work it undertakes, what it takes to become a crew member dealing with high-pressure situations and the aftercare work the charity carries out with trauma survivors.
There is also an opportunity to learn how businesses can collaborate with the charity.
Will Crawford | Experiencing mindfulness through music
In this month's episode we're speaking with Will Crawford, founder of quietnote- a company helping people better experience mindfulness through music. In aid of Mental Health Awareness month, Will catches up with Future Faces president Sabah Hussain to discuss how music can be used as an effective tool to manage stress and become better attuned with our own mental health.
Despite living in an increasingly connected world, statistics show that people are feeling more isolated than ever and often struggle to balance every day pressures with taking care of their mental health. In light of this, Will shares how music and meditation have enabled him and his business to better people's personal approach to wellbeing.
The mindfulness meditation session begins at 15min 30sec.
For more information visit quiet-note.com
Davies Okeowo | Why Birmingham is one of Europe's most thriving start-up ecosystems
In this episode we speak with Davies Okeowo, an award-winning entrepreneur, public speaker and recent founder of PitchHub, about what it is that makes Birmingham the perfect place for budding entrepreneurs looking to get their business ideas off the ground.
Davies Okeowo has built an impressive career centred on helping businesses grow and has become an active member of the Birmingham business scene. He has also been recognised for his achievements as the ‘Future Face of Entrepreneurship 2021’ at the Future Faces Awards, as well as winning Nigeria's version of ‘The Apprentice’ (‘The Next Titan’), and being named on the Forbes Africa ‘30 Under 30’ list in 2020.
With a wealth of experience under his belt, Davies shares his words of wisdom for anyone looking to follow in the footsteps of some of Birmingham's most successful business people, and signposts the plethora of resources available to help them get off to a flying start.
Sabah Hussain | Adopting a growth mindset
In our second episode we're speaking with Sabah Hussain, vice-president of the Future Faces Chamber and business coach at Corella, about the difference between a fixed mindset and growth mindset. Hearing about her own journey towards self-belief, Sabah shares her advice for anyone looking to stop holding themselves back and become more confident pushing themselves out of their comfort zone.
Jaccy Datta | Finding friends through Future Faces
In our first episode we speak with Jaccy Datta, president of the Future Faces Chamber and anti-financial crime specialist at Santander, about her journey to discovering the Future Faces network when relocating to Birmingham with her husband several years ago. Finding comfort in the forming of new friendships with like-minded young professionals, Jaccy explains how the Future Faces community became more than just a part of her professional life and a defining factor in her decision to plant roots in the wonderful city.
Welcome to Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast
Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast is the official podcast of the Future Faces Chambers of Commerce, a network helping young professionals across the West Midlands to network and develop. Listen to hear from the best of our region’s young talent, discuss a range of topics that are important to this generation of future leaders, and learn how Future Faces can help with your own professional development.