Over 40 attended the recent joint Doctoral College – Institute of Directors Planned Serendipity Networking Evening with a great mix of PGRs, ECRs, alumni and IoD members.
To give a brief summary of the event:
Richard ‘Mr Productivity’ Maybury, chair of IoD Surrey and managing consultant at Attitude Solutions, opened the evening with stories of his own encounters with planned serendipity. Richard talked about pushing out of his comfort zone when pursuing the jobs he wanted, and leaping into the unknown rather than settling in a secure but unsatisfying role.
Dr Steven Chick was up next. Having recently left the University of Surrey, Steve now works within HMRC as an operational research analyst, and gave a great talk on his progression from student, to researcher, and into his new role outside of the usual academic path. Steve played a big part in the IoD student membership programme at UoS, holding the secretary role between 2017 and 2019. Student membership with the IoD allowed Steve to make connections and gain the knowledge to understand the business and industry sector; by putting himself in the right place at the right time, Steve was able to make the most of chance encounters and create his own luck.
Jonathan Richards was our keynote speaker for the evening. The CEO and Co-Founder of Breathe HR was recently awarded Director of the Year 2019 for SMEs in the London & South region, and gave an enthusiastic talk on his career journey from leaving school at 16 with a passion for racing cars to launching a HR company with a near-100% annual expansion rate. Jonathan’s talk was very much focused on taking chances and putting it all on the line, and Breathe HR inspires businesses to put their employees first, improving the way SMEs manage employees. Jonathan’s career journey has been unconventional, but highlighted the importance of trusting instinct and following passion.
Following the thought-provoking talks, everyone reached under their chairs and pulled out a bag of Lego. The idea behind Lego networking as an icebreaker is to try to build a Lego person that resembles or represents you by speaking to others. As you can see below, we ended up with a lot of colourful Lego people at the end of the session.
If you want to attend more events like this you can join Surrey’s IoD here
