Friday 30 March 2012

EMERGING LEADERS

This years BSA Conference in Manchester includes an innovative segment designed specifically for the future leaders across the mutual sector. The session is tailored for those individuals in our business that we regard as increasingly influential and integral to our future success. Typically these are "middle managers" (what a hackneyed phrase that is) with an appetite for development on such topics as strategy, leadership, risk-evaluation and the key challenges to our sector in the future. The Conference segment will be externally facilitated by the ebullient Terry Russell and I'm sure attendess will gain a great deal from the experience and also from the networking opportunities of just being around the Conference. Aside from acknowledging that growing our own leadership talent is vital for the mutual sector, the session will have the side effect of portraying a contemporary image to the media , which has in the past caricatured the building society annual conference as lacking any diversity and being populated by middle aged men in grey suits.! There will still be a few of us around of course but the conference is about a lot more than that, as proven by a swift glance at the calibre of guest speakers. The Emerging Leaders concept is a familiar one at The Hanley as we have our own internal development programme for key influencers across the society and we have 4 of our rising stars participating / competing on our programme. They'll be joining me at this years conference and I hope it can springboard them to more success as individuals and as a Hanley team in 2012.