gdb Diamond Experts Conference 2023 Programme

Presenter: Dr Arlene Egan PhD, MLitt, BA Psych (hons) –Chief Executive at Roffey Park Institute

Management has always been an exciting and challenging role. Gaining competence and confidence in balancing competing demands, stakeholder management, driving performance, developing staff, planning and executing operations and having accountability for outcomes all mean that a manager’s world is busy, dynamic and complex. Add to this hybrid working, which for many organisations is still in experimentation phase and a different layer of complexity has been given to managers. This talk explores the current landscape for hybrid management and presents insights and practical tips on how management practice may become more effective in this environment.

BIO: Arlene is the CEO of Roffey Park Institute. She has twenty-five years-experience working in leadership and management development across many sectors internationally. Arlene was awarded a PhD from University College Dublin in Psychology for her work on designing, implementing and evaluating initiatives to enhance critical thinking.

Arlene has designed and delivered bespoke programmes to enhance leadership practice and organisational function. Her specialist areas include team development, leadership development and performance, motivation, change management, innovation, creativity and critical thinking. She has recently released a book aimed at third level educators entitled ‘Confidence in Critical Thinking’.

Presentations continued

Social Media for SMEs – How to Get Results From Your Channels

Replace Your Urgent With the IMPORTANT

Presenter: Amanda Beechey – Consultant at The

8020 Consultancy

Presenter:

Mark Scholefield & Alicja Gaszynski – Digital Marketing team at Storm12

Join us as we discuss ever-changing algorithms, creating content designed to get engagement and how to maintain a consistent schedule. We’ll cover the basics as well as tools, tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your outreach programme, making social less of a chore and more of a key tool in your marketing mix.

BIO: Mark heads up Storm12’s Digital Marketing team, designing and delivering strategy-backed campaigns, marketing automation, content and a host of other services for clients. Matching strategy with creativity and a not-sosecret love of analytics, Mark helps clients make data-driven decisions for their digital marketing programmes.

BIO: Alicja has always had a fascination with social media and even wrote her 25,000 word dissertation on fostering consumer relationships using social media. Dubbed a social media guru by not only her friends and family, Alicja enjoys creating captivating content for the various social media platforms. She is also a data-driven person and finds the analytics side of digital media as interesting as the content side.

In this session we’ll introduce what we call ‘the business anatomy’. And, as with any anatomy, why it’s health matters. You’ll hear about the hidden health issues that most likely lurk behind the ‘urgent’ issues repeatedly consuming most of your time, and at the expense of dealing with more important longer-term matters. We’ll provide some suggestions as to what to do about them, helping you to find more time to focus on what’s actually important for your business. No matter your size or what you do.

BIO: Amanda combines a 20-year senior level career in international sales, with an enviable experience of running high performing client teams in challenging and competitive marketplaces.

If commercial performance and client delivery are crucial issues that are at risk, Amanda’s ultra-disarming and empathic skills quickly identify where the issues lay and help correct the approaches needed to get things back on track.

Bring It On… How to Stand Up and Present With Greater Confidence!

Presenter: Joe Cheal – Lead Imaginarian & Trainer at Imaginarium Learning & Development

How do confident presenters build confidence? What do they do that makes the difference? How do they prepare themselves?

In this session, you will discover five practical tips… to develop your presenting confidence… and this will help you engage an audience, gain credibility and be remembered for all the right reasons! Bring it on!

BIO: Joe Cheal, Imaginarium Learning & Development, has been presenting professionally for over 30 years… including helping others to develop their resilience and to present more confidently. He is co-author of “The Model Presenter” and looks forward to sharing some rather cool stuff with you!

Presentations continued

Creating the Ideal Learning Environment

Presenter: Ben Baginsky – Programme Director at Roffey Park Institute

Learning is no longer simply an element of work – confined to induction or an annual professional development process. Today, learning is at the heart of work. More than ever before, we are aware of the complexity we operate in, and that we constantly need to review and renew our mindsets and tools for responding to ever-changing, unpredictable and new circumstances. This short session will ask the question: what is learning at work today? And offer insights on how to generate the conditions in which impactful ongoing learning can happen at work – in service of growing your organisation.

BIO: Ben is a Programme Director at Roffey Park Institute. He is an organisational consultant dedicated to empowering all those he works and to bring out the best in individuals, teams and organisations.

He has run his own organisational consultancy practice and worked as a Social Worker.

He holds a certificate in Teaching Leadership from the Kansas Leadership Centre and has trained in systemic family therapy. His main areas of interest include leadership and management, group and team dynamics, and adult learning.

Social Media and the Law – Think Before You Tweet

Presenter: Penina Shepherd – CEO at Acumen Business Law

“Social media is an important tool in promoting your business, but it can also be a minefield when it concerns defamatory posts, breach of intellectual property and employees posting on behalf of your business!

This talk will set out the basic rules to bear in mind with practical tips on how to make sure your social media activity is working for you and not against you!”

BIO: Penina is the founder of ACUMEN BUSINESS LAW, a Top 50 Groundbreaking & Innovative Law Firms in the UK and Europe (Financial Times), a multi award winning entrepreneur, a business lawyer, the author of the inspirational bestseller book The Freedom Revolution and a headline speaker.

She has been in the legal profession since 1996, worked for top 100 UK Law Firms both as Partner & Head of Department and regularly advises clients on Company, Commercial, Intellectual Property, Data & Compliance matters and other Business Law matters. Penina is also an expert in the region on Shares, Incentives & Benefits Schemes advising regularly on HMRC Approved Schemes as well as Unapproved.

ESG Explained – “What is it and is it Relevant to me?”

Presenter: John Battersby – Head of Public Affairs at Metro Bank

Introduction to the topic of ESG – Environment, Social and Governance – and why businesses, customers and others are paying more attention to it.

BIO: John is Head of Public Affairs at Metro Bank. Before joining the bank in 2021 he ran the communications and policy function at fintech platform RateSetter, and prior to that he oversaw communications and marketing for the Lloyd’s of London global insurance market. He started his career at HM Treasury where he held several communications and policy roles.

Presentations continued

Changing the Perception of Sales

Presenter: Jerry Meldrum & Claudio De Freitas – Sales Geek

The word ‘sales’ has been tainted in a bad light for too long! The world of selling has changed, but not everyone has moved with it, the era of boilerplate pitch is gone.

In this interactive and energetic session, we will be covering skills of a modern day sales representative and how to establish strong needs by using effective questioning.

BIO: Jerry supports clients’ growth through sales in South London, Croydon and Bromley – establishing strong sales cultures, instilling winning sales behaviours and, ultimately, increasing sales income to help the local business community thrive.

Sales Geek South London was established in February 2022 and prior to this, Jerry built up 20+ years’ experience in sales across the world, 10 of which were at senior management and strategic levels in various industries.

Jerry’s now supported a large variety of clients, from Universities through to SaaS start ups, from trades to charities, bringing bespoke solutions to each to enable their accelerated growth.

BIO: Claudio has over 15 years of sales experience. From coaching and developing high performing sales teams to leading a now global dominant brand through hypergrowth. Claudio now uses the experience gained to help SME’s across Surrey & West Sussex achieve their true potential. Looking forward to sharing a fun and cool session with you!

1-2-1 Sessions

Presenter: Jeremy Taylor – The Company Connector

If you are looking to raise funds to grow your business, charity, CIC or Social Enterprise then take 10 minutes for a pre-bookable with Jeremy Taylor.

Over the past 2 years Jeremy has written grant applications resulting in £425,000 being awarded & unlocking over £1m+ investment by 100+ businesses. He has developed a clear methodology that will help to create a winning grant application for your business.

He will give you advice on:

• Finding the right Grant for you

• Getting Grant-ready

• Completing the Application

And if a grant isn’t right for you then he can also help with other forms of funding & support.

Presenter: Lorraine Bell – University of Brighton

The University of Brighton are offering free, pre-booked sessions with an Innovation advisor to explore new ideas, whether it is a new product, service, process or business model, looking at:

• Introduction on how to manage innovation ideas from concept to value

• Deep dive into your businesses needs and objectives

• Explore opportunities

• How to start an innovation action plan

• How to access Innovation funding

EXCLUSIVE OFFER: In addition, we are very excited to be able to extend an exclusive offer from the University of Brighton’s Help to Grow initiative. Fully funded places are available for attendees of the gdb Diamond Experts Conference. Join the September Crawley/Gatwick Help to Grow course and benefit from online and face-to-face workshops, mentoring, and business network development and create your customized Growth Action Plan with the University of Brighton. For more information and to register your place visit our stand at the conference.

Our gdb Diamond Expert Exhibitors

DIAMOND EXPERTS Conference

We hope you enjoyed today’s event. Scan the QR code for a quick and easy way to share your feedback