Future Faces: The Young Professionals Podcast

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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/

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 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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.