Experience

Ahead Partnership

• United Kingdom
• Professional Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Head of Operations

  • Sep 2018 - Present

  Ahead Partnership is a social enterprise that partners the private, public and third sectors to deliver impactful business outreach programmes of activities in schools, with a focus on students in areas of socio-economic disadvantage across the Leeds City Region, Birmingham and London. As Head of Operations I lead our delivery team and oversee our education and business outreach programmes. I lead the continuing evolution and innovation of products, processes and systems that ensure effective delivery of Ahead Partnership programmes, with a focus increasing the sustainability of the organisation.I deliver both formal and informal training internally and enjoy facilitating sessions with the team. I am passionate about creative thinking and innovation and lead internal sessions with the team to ensure continuous improvement and creative thinking is embedded across Ahead Partnership.

• Head of Service Excellence

  • Apr 2016 - Sep 2018

  My role focused on leading the Business Improvement Team - this included working closely with colleagues to embed creative thinking, best practice processes and products across all of our operating areas. My role focused on four key areas:Product Development I led on new product development to ensure that our offer remained exciting to businesses and schools. I led our annual Creative Away Day and quarterly Creative Catch Ups, to encourage the team to share and develop ideas. Process Improvement Working closely with colleagues, clients and external stakeholders, My role was to understand, and develop how we operate as a business in line with risks and opportunities. I analysed company-wide data and client/colleague experience at all levels to develop strategic process improvements to ensure we are delivering a high quality service and working in the best way possible. Embedding Continuous Improvement I worked with the team to embed the learning developed from creative sessions, data analysis, user experience feedback and feedback from colleagues; I delivered both formal and informal training internally and work closely to monitor and tweak process/product improvements.Evaluation and Quality I focused on assessing the quality of our delivery, including evaluation of our acclaimed school and business engagement model. I regularly investigated quantitative and qualitative feedback to feed into process and product improvements. Ahead Partnership are a not for profit business with a core focus on business outreach into schools, colleges and universities across the Leeds City Region, Sheffield City Region, Birmingham and Westminster. We work with a large number of clients, from corporate businesses, to smaller SMEs, to manage and facilitate their education outreach programmes through a series of off the shelf and bespoke programmes designed to excite young people about the world of work.



Ink & Bear

• Owner

  • Oct 2017 - Present

  Ink & Bear sells handprinted colourful screen prints, cards, t-shirts and homeware inspired by nature and travel. Check out my online store (www.inkandbear.co.uk) for more, or follow allow on Instagram (www.instagram.com/inkandbear).Under my Ink & Bear umbrella I am also the founder of Super Seconds Saturday, a bi-annual event that brings independent makers to sell seconds/misprints - this is growing and if you're a maker who is interested please get in touch! Ink & Bear sells handprinted colourful screen prints, cards, t-shirts and homeware inspired by nature and travel. Check out my online store (www.inkandbear.co.uk) for more, or follow allow on Instagram (www.instagram.com/inkandbear).Under my Ink & Bear umbrella I am also the founder of Super Seconds Saturday, a bi-annual event that brings independent makers to sell seconds/misprints - this is growing and if you're a maker who is interested please get in touch!



Leeds Beckett University

• United Kingdom
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Projects Officer - Access and Widening Participation

  • Apr 2015 - Apr 2016

  As an Access and Widening Participation Projects Officer for Leeds Beckett University I engaged with schools and colleges to host activities and residential activities with students from Widening Participation backgrounds from across the Leeds City Region and further afield.I represented the Widening Participation work Leeds Beckett University undertakes in collaboration with the Arts, Environment and Technology Faculty. The role had a core focus on widening access in higher education and ensuring young people are aware of the wide variety of opportunities going to University can offer them. One of my core responsibilities was growing the Advantage Programme. The Advantage Programme aimed to get more academic staff from Leeds Beckett University to visit schools to deliver talks on specialist areas - examples of these talks included sociology talks to year 10 students and an events management workshop with year 12 students.



Ahead Partnership

• United Kingdom
• Professional Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Programme Manager

  • Apr 2013 - Apr 2015

  In my role as Programme Manager at Ahead Partnership I managed the education outreach team to ensure the businesses, schools and training providers we brought together receive the highest possible standards of delivery across all of our programmes. Ahead Partnership provide high quality corporate social responsibility programmes for business clients across the UK - clients include Asda, Tesco, Premier Farnell, Pinsent Masons, DWF, Yorkshire Building Society, First Group, Zenith and WYG. The programmes I was responsible for included Make the Grade, working with students aged 9-18 and Aspire2Work, working with young adults aged 16-19 in Bradford. Our Make the Grade work was praised by Lord Heseltine in the National Growth Review in late 2012 and focuses on tackling skills shortages in young people by introducing them to the world of work from an early age. Make the Grade has been awarded Big Lottery Funding to develop a national programme in the Leeds City Region, Birmingham and London.

• Project Coordinator (Education)

  • May 2011 - Apr 2013

  In my role as Project Coordinator within the Education team I project managed several of Ahead Partnership’s Make the Grade school programmes; this involved planning for the schools’ and businesses’ priorities at the outset, scheduling in activities for volunteers, managing the programmes over a three-year period, arranging volunteering activities, sourcing volunteers and ensuring all parties involved are happy with the programmes taking place.



Leeds Beckett University

• United Kingdom
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Admissions Administrator

  • Nov 2010 - Apr 2011

  My role involved a variety of general administration and customer service tasks including:• Processing student applications - including liaising with academic colleagues in the Health Faculty throughout the process• Liaising with students to ensure the application process operated smoothly and organising interviews between students and academic colleagues• Speaking to students face-to-face and on the phone to discuss their application queries• Utilising and updating the database using Banner software



Camberwell

• Research Consultant

  • Sep 2009 - Sep 2010

  Main responsibilities included researching the market, writing feasibility reports and business plans, aiding in organising and attending client’s site visits and analysing financial accounts. I offered both support and supervision for numerous projects, ensuring the completion of final reports and amalgamating information into a recommendation document to present to funding bodies, clients and senior management. Main responsibilities included researching the market, writing feasibility reports and business plans, aiding in organising and attending client’s site visits and analysing financial accounts. I offered both support and supervision for numerous projects, ensuring the completion of final reports and amalgamating information into a recommendation document to present to funding bodies, clients and senior management.