ACH Birmingham hosts Future Leaders
Common Purpose prides itself on their unrivalled access to senior leaders and organisations across the world, and their Future Leaders course provides university students with the Cultural Intelligence and leadership skills to tackle the complex challenges of the world today. On 10th January, ACH Birmingham gave Future Leaders from Birmingham City University access to their inner workings.
The 8 Future Leaders brought with them degrees in film, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and business management. Each individual brought a unique experience in a specific field, with a further distinctive insight into how a business like ACH can thrive.
The meeting began with a presentation delivered by Matt, our Marketing and Communications Officer. He gave a detailed explanation of how our organisation runs along with our business priorities and the barriers we face as a growing organisation. The presentation came to a close with relevant figures and statistics to date as well as future plans we have for ACH to be seen as a nationally recognised leader in the refugee sector. Many of the students declared how ACH offered a unique “insight into the running of a business rarely offered to university students.”
The presentation finished with us setting the students a challenge, and the reigns were then handed over to the university students to ask as many questions about the business as possible. The students posed questions to ACH Chair Andy Burkitt, along with senior managers from across the business. They then collectively had 30 minutes to brainstorm solutions to the challenge, during which time they each brought out their individual notes, made use of the whiteboard at hand and worked together to present their findings.
After their 30 minutes, the Future Leaders presented their solutions to the challenge set.
Taha (a recent graduate student in Electronics Engineering) commented on how “interesting it has been resolving problems and seeing how the organisation works.”
Owen spoke for the rest of the group when he said “we’ve loved doing this and getting the opportunity to brainstorm our ideas.”
The session ended with a round of applause for all, followed by lunch and a sense of appreciation for ACH as a company, and what CP hopes to unlock in these students. All in all, it proved to be a successful day with knowledge gained by both parties.
