My career started in manufacturing, working for Courtaulds, an advanced materials and chemicals manufacturer.
In my role as HR & Training Manager I learnt about industrial relations and started to engage with training and enterprise councils and the public sector.
This led to senior roles at ChamberLink, Business Link North West and The Manufacturing Institute before my current role as Managing Director for Business Support & Business Finance at The Growth Company, which is responsible for delivering Made Smarter in the North West.
Looking back on that early part of my career it gave me a deep understanding of how employee engagement is absolutely critical to any change programme. This remains true for the delivery of Made Smarter. The core principle of the programme is that people are at the centre of adoption, and that technologies are tools in their toolbox. A change that is designed with the support of the whole workforce is more likely to succeed. Employee engagement at all levels within a business is required.
My subsequent experience in senior roles across various organisations supporting manufacturing has also shaped my approach to leading Made Smarter.
Across the Made Smarter team we offer a wealth of hands-on experience of working in manufacturing. This fed directly into the original design for the Adoption pilot and fuels our ongoing evolution to provide relevant, practical and impactful business support to the sector. That lived experience has meant we can quickly understand a manufacturer's challenges. We are able to engage with people at a human level and speak in a language that is straightforward. That gives them confidence that they have come to the right place for support and we can guide them on their digital transformation journey. The programme has also helped businesses unlock talent that they didn’t know they had. That’s truly inspirational.
Since we launched in 2019 Made Smarter North West has empowered 125 digital leaders with the vision, skills and drive to pursue smarter manufacturing. We have achieved this through our two innovative leadership programmes: Leading Digital Transformation (LDT) programme and Leading Change for Digital Champions (LCDC). They work hand in hand to support SME manufacturers to take their entire organisation and people through digital transformation successfully and maximise the opportunities for their business.
The perma-crisis that manufacturing leaders have experienced over the last four years has underlined the need to adapt operations to become agile and resilient whilst preparing for future challenges. It has created a stronger emphasis on the need for strong leaders who can navigate complexity, innovate and engage with their workforce effectively.
Manufacturing needs digital leaders able to manage change by understanding where the business needs to go, how it will get there and what potential resistance it could experience. A modern leader also needs to be comfortable admitting when they don’t have all the answers. That humility builds confidence in your team.
Made Smarter has blazed a trail in its approach with a multi-levelled skills approach, offering high impact and focussed support from the top floor to the shop floor, with flexibility to allow businesses to fit it around their workload and business demands; giving them practical skills to implement straight away, bringing immediate benefit.