Imperial as one members attend a personal branding session with Sandra Kerr OBE who is the national director for Race for Oppertunity

On the 21st May 2014 Imperial as One hosted Sandra Kerr OBE for a personal branding workshop. This was to find out more about Sandra’s journey to becoming the national director for Race for Opportunity.

Race for Opportunity is the race campaign from Business in the Community. Race for opportunity is about improving employment opportunities for ethnic minorities in the UK.  

Sandra started off by asking the group what they intended to get out of the workshop and the three key aims that came up where:

1) Branding myself to increase the chances of career progression

2) How to make yourself more visible

3) Progressing the diversity agenda without being the stereotype

Sandra went through her history of working in the benefits sector and working her way up to being the only BAME member of staff to be promoted to supervisor then again to training new members of staff to becoming a manager.

The main advice Sandra had to offer is in order to create a better brand for yourself it is always helpful to first master the role you are currently in then continue to ask if there are ways you can support other members of your team. She also mentioned that if you don’t have the knowledge or experience to fully master your current role or the role you wish to go into be prepared to learn, you must not let disappointment stop you from reaching the goal as one door closes it could open up others.

IAO members also were advised to take a bit of quiet time to reflect on where they are in their career and to focus on what they like doing and why did they do the Job, it always pays to be humble and nice within each chosen career path and when leaving a role remember your reputation will always get left behind which if a person had left a company with a bad reputation it could potentially hinder any progression made in the future. Leave every role as you would like to somebody to new to find it.

Sandra was very empathetic and was happily ready to answer the groups questions on the potential barriers that they felt they  faced stopping them from progressing in their chosen avenues, drawing on her own personal experiences Sandra was able to offer great advice to the group and hopefully will be back to do more workshops like this in the future.

Valuable and potent advice was given throughout the workshop with the most potent ones stating that “you are responsible for your own reputation” and to “take ownership”

Overall it seemed IAO members have managed to benefit after and grow more confident throughout the workshop with many aspects taken from the workshop and have a few more tools to take back with them to hopefully help their career progression.