TRANSCEND
An AFBE Leadership Training Programme
TRANSCEND is a specially curated leadership course that is designed to engage, motivate, inspire and challenge people of colour to help them progress into leadership roles. This course will infuse a new perspective on the ever so little but important subtle social and leadership skills any leader and aspiring leader would need to go above and beyond in their career and everyday life.
Application Deadline:
31st August 2023
TRANSCEND is for individuals who are in senior technical and lead technical roles in their organisations with over 10 years of experience who want to
Progress into senior management and executive positions in their careers.
Be mentors and role models to others.
Be the best leaders they can be
Be a beacon of change and hope in their industry.
Already in line with direct reports.
Leadership: if you've only got a minute and you want to see how this works, watch this
“The strengthening of our society through the application of STEM and the improvement of our processes by widening participation are AFBE-UK ‘s raison d’etre. We desire that our engineering companies look at all levels like the communities in which we operate. We are therefore excited to run another TRANSCEND session. This series will equip our senior technical professionals with the tools they need in order to go as far as their abilities take them within the organisations they work in. Make no mistake our attendees don’t need fixing, what we hope these sessions which are very interactive do, is awaken the giant within. I congratulate Roy and his team for putting this all together and I encourage everyone to take advantage of this unique opportunity. “
Dr Ollie Folayan MBE CEng FIChemE Founder/Co-Chair AFBE UK ScotlandCOURSE OBJECTIVES AND VISION
The TRANSCEND Leadership Programme aims to:
- Inspire effective leadership communication and engagement.
- Encourage strategic transition into management and executive roles.
- Provide awareness to the responsibilities and challenges that come with leadership.
To be a leader at any level, an individual needs to be aware and skilled in the ever so subtle and obvious leadership roles.
All participants must be ready for a change and have the right mindset needed to take the NECESSARY steps to progress into leadership roles.
The underrepresentation of people of colour at corporate leadership level in most companies and organisations is well documented with very limited progress. In 2017, AFBE UK conducted research that showed there was less than 0.3% of black representation on boards of a variety of organisations. In Feb 2021, the financial times reported that the FTSE 100 has 0 black people at Executive level. The report The Equity Effect by Henley Business school showed a 58% increase in revenue for companies with programme targeted at driving race equity in their companies.
With all of this it is necessary to capture relevance of diversity in the growth and success of organisations. In 2015 McKinsey published research on Why Diversity Matters, which was recently updated in 2019 – with a business case for why diversity in executive teams remains strong.
The summary of the report is – 25% of gender diverse companies are more likely to outperform their peers while 36% of ethnically diverse companies outperform their peers. Some of the reasons for this conclusion are:
- Non-homogenous or diverse teams tend to have a range of perspectives which adds to a company’s competitiveness in a globalized economy.
- The companies perform better because they can attract and keep top talent – and we know that Exceptional talent comes from all backgrounds – hence diverse.
- All of which translates to – Profits – Bottom line
- Improves a company’s global image and license to operate.
The AFBE-UK TRANSCEND team will run a series of sessions that seeks to unearth the barriers to career progression and the chart
a path into leadership.
- Participants shortlisted and informed in August/September 2023
- Meeting with Transcend team representatives to discuss training schedule options
- Transcend cohort 2 starts in September 2023
TRANSCEND will admit a maximum of 10 participants to attend
The sessions will be interactive and member led and will address the following aspects.
- Have a better understanding of leadership communication to be an authentic leader capable of networking, influencing and effecting change in the workplace institution and life.
- Understand the impact of unconscious bias and microaggression and how to navigate around them.
- Understand the ethics of negotiation, the essence of building business trust, mutual respect and mutual benefit.
- Be able to identify the origins of limiting behaviours that can affect our professional and personal lives and how to deal with them.
- How to lead an exemplary life and be responsible to yourself, the industry you belong to and for posterity.
- Individual Package:
Individuals sign up for leadership training.
Get in touch to discuss. - Company Package:
Deliver internal leadership training to your organisation.
Get in touch to discuss. - Sponsor Package:
Sponsor interested individuals on the leadership training.
Get in touch to discuss.
Application Deadline:
31st August 2023
Participants:
Max 10 participants per course
Course Starts:
September 2023
Length:
32 hours of training content
Delivery
Online Delivery via Zoom
Language
English Training
COURSE BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
The underrepresentation of people of colour at corporate leadership level in most companies and organisations is well documented with very limited progress. In 2017, AFBE UK conducted research that showed there was less than 0.3% of black representation on boards of a variety of organisations. In Feb 2021, the financial times reported that the FTSE 100 has 0 black people at Executive level. The report The Equity Effect by Henley Business school showed a 58% increase in revenue for companies with programme targeted at driving race equity in their companies.
With all of this it is necessary to capture relevance of diversity in the growth and success of organisations. In 2015 McKinsey published research on Why Diversity Matters, which was recently updated in 2019 – with a business case for why diversity in executive teams remains strong.
The summary of the report is – 25% of gender diverse companies are more likely to outperform their peers while 36% of ethnically diverse companies outperform their peers. Some of the reasons for this conclusion are:
- Non-homogenous or diverse teams tend to have a range of perspectives which adds to a company’s competitiveness in a globalized economy.
- The companies perform better because they can attract and keep top talent – and we know that Exceptional talent comes from all backgrounds – hence diverse.
- Improves a company’s global image and license to operate.
- All of which translates to – Profits – Bottom line
Course Outline and Timetable
The AFBE-UK TRANSCEND team will run a series of sessions that seeks to unearth the barriers to career progression and the chart
a path into leadership.
- Participants shortlisted and informed in April/May 2023
- Meeting with Transcend team representatives to discuss training schedule options
- Transcend cohort 2 starts in June 2023
The sessions will be interactive and member led and will address the following aspects.
Training Schedule
- Language: English Training
- Delivery: Online (Zoom)
- Application deadline: 3rd May 2023
- Course start: First week in June 2023
- Lenght: 32 hours of training content
This course covered the basics on leadership, the importance of leadership, diversity, equity and inclusion and why and also looked into the difference between leadership & task and leadership & meaning, democratising leadership at every level how to achieve this.
Helps participants understand their level of leadership and leadership style with a focus on leadership communication, how to make a positive impact when you communicate and interact with others. Examines the impact of communication, the various barriers to communication, and how to communicate messages that inform, inspire, engage and unite people behind a common goal, vision.
Unconscious bias exists in companies since they are a reflection of society. The course covers the different types of unconscious bias, how it can affect business performance, how to avoid stereotypes or stereotyping, separating the conscious and the unconscious and how to address biases and make others aware of it.
Educates on the approaches and skills needed to be a good negotiator including negotiation as a lever of change, negotiation stories and models with a focus on trust and a drive for sustainability, creating value and building business trust, mutual respect and mutual benefit.
Limiting behaviours can be varied and can be due to upbringing, experiences and the workplace. Participants will acknowledge and learn how to overcome self-limiting behaviours such as: engaging in below the line thinking, remaining powerless and speechless and putting off investing in yourself. MQ motivational intelligence is a person’s ability to identify and manage negative thoughts and self-limiting beliefs in order to overcome obstacles and accomplish goals.
Calling Out reflects on the benefits and impact of calling out forms of prejudice, educating how to go about calling out wrong doings and how to be selective in picking their battles and dealing with micro-agressions. Buddying Up relates to sharing experiences with others and also seeing different perspectives, and includes steps to promote a buddy system in your organisation to support others.
This course focuses on the essence of having or seeking role models and build skills in identifying role models who inspire you, as well as creating an understanding of their successful characteristics.
This course educates individuals on the usefulness of having a personal coach. It focuses on the benefits, and impact on your decisions in pursuing your vision and goals in life. It includes a mini-coaching session give a taste of the value that coaching adds to their lives and career.
This module focuses on the value of having a mentor and building a mentor mentee relationship, covering the mutual benefits and how to build and sustain the mentoring relationship. This course will also be followed by pairing the participants with mentors for a duration of 6 months and beyond as agreed between the mentor/mentee.
A summary look at the whole training programme.
Brief talks given by Co-Chair of AFBE and external special guests as well
For sponsorship package, to participate or any enquiries, please contact: [email protected]
Testimonials From Cohort 1
TRANSCEND Advisors
Former Director of Human
Performance, BP, AFBE Leadership Advisory Team
TRANSCEND is a leadership programme created by people who understand the challenges faced by people of colour and the underrepresentation in corporate leadership level. The program covers a wide range of practical skills-building to navigate the business world as a minority ethnic leader.”
It is great to finally see a leadership programme developed by/and for people of colour. I encourage organisations to consider this as an investment in future leaders from underrepresented ethnic groups
Meet The Trainers
Dr Ollie Folayan, MBE
Co Chair AFBE UK Scotland
For years we at AFBE-UK have run programmes that support early and mid careers but TRANSCEND exists to support the latter stages of the careers of engineers of Black and minority ethnic origin. We find that training up more leaders, in addition to increasing representation at board level will also help early and mid-careers. People become what they see.
Ollie will be taking the bonus content that explores the different forms of intelligence with a focus on motivational intelligence.
Ollie Folayan is visiting professor to the School of Science and Engineering, University of Dundee and Head of Process and Safety at Engineering consultancy, Optimus Plus Aberdeen. He is the co – founder of AFBE -UK.
Ollie graduated with a BEng in Chemical Process Engineering with Fuel Technology from the University of Sheffield in 1999 and then earned a Doctorate (PhD) in Fuels and Combustion from University of Leeds in 2002 authoring five international publications in the field of combustion and engineering. To date Ollie has worked on Major CAPEX Front End Engineering Design, Detailed Design and commissioning Projects.
In 2018 Ollie Folayan was accepted into the Fellowship of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.
Ollie has championed successful outreach programmes such as Making Engineering Hot, NextGen (Scotland), Transition and Real Projects and has co-authored three publications on the influence of role models in the transition from academic study to the workplace and on the sustainability of the engineering profession in the UK. Ollie has chaired a number of annual seminars featuring key industry leaders and politicians and is a regular speaker at events on varied engineering topics. Ollie was a member of the All Energy Diversity and Inclusion task group setup in 2019 by Oil and Gas UK
Ollie has been a judge of the Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards (2020, 2021 & 2022), the Offshore Achievement Awards (2019), the Association for Consultancy and Engineering Awards (2021) and the Oil and Gas UK Awards (2020, 2021)
Ollie was a finalist in the Mentor of the Year Category at OGUK Awards in 2021 and finalist in the Diversity Hero at the Herald Awards in 2021. Ollie was awarded the Diversity and Inclusion Award by the Institution of Chemical Engineering (IChemE) in 2021.
Ollie was awarded an MBE for services to diversity and inclusion in engineering in the King’s First New Year Honours’ List in 2023.
Dr Roy Bitrus
Co Chair AFBE UK Scotland and Leadership Coordinator
TRANSCEND is a product of vision, drawing from years of experience of individuals who aspire or have progressed into corporate leadership. With TRANSCEND we can create a safe space to inspire, motivate and provide the right tools to people of colour to encourage their progression into corporate leadership.
Roy would be delivering the introductory and leadership communication modules in TRANSCEND.
A Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) – Unlocking Ambition Enterprise Fellow, with over 12 years of experience working with SME’s, corporations, and academia. He enjoys working with people and networking to provide support, lead projects, and connect people. Roy has a technical background with experience in Geoscience, business development and sustainable development goals (SDG’s) and his interest is in the application of innovation and technology as a solution to drive energy transition while solving environmental, social and governance related issues. Roy is privilege to have won several national and international pitching and business communication competitions, wining grants and raising funds for companies, and is currently consulting to start-ups and SME’s in Scotland and England. Roy likes golfing and hunting in his spare time.
Roy is the co-chair of AFBE UK Scotland and also a member of the OEUK DEI Task Group. He is responsible for leading the AFBE Leadership team and ensuring that they deliver value on set goals and targets in line with vision of the leadership programme which is aimed at inspiring effective leadership and promoting diversity in board rooms and senior executive level.
Emma Opara
It was a pleasure to work with the team to deliver TRANSCEND to cohort 1. We’re looking forward to cohort 2 to share these bespoke training modules, particularly curated for leaders-in-waiting and the organisations who recognise that now is a critical time to evolve.
Emma is the specialist conversationalist in the TRANSCEND programme.
Emma is a lawyer with extensive experience initially gained from commercial legal practise before transitioning to in-house roles in the energy industry.
These positions have spanned across the oil, gas, power generation, operations, and utilities sectors of the industry and offered her unique opportunities to support business organisations in West Africa and the United Kingdom, working with both industry contractors and operators.
Her areas of focus are providing legal risk management and project advisory services for commercial operations, while ensuring senior leadership is able to positively react to legislative change and policy drivers.
Due to the complexity of projects and workspaces that she has been interacted with throughout her career, she has developed a keen understanding that there is more to any role than the hard skills which we accrue over the course of time. More important than the technical knowledge is the perception required to determine real issues that underline the multifaceted negotiations and transactions which regularly take place with both in-house and external parties.
As a result of the above, Emma has a passion for mentoring and providing as much necessary guidance as possible to new entrants in the corporate workspace and encouraging awareness of and access to more rewarding opportunities especially for those from multi-culturally diverse backgrounds.
Abhi Goswami
AFBE Leadership Team Member, Team Lead, Senior Management Consultant, Shell
Transcend, is a programme customised towards career professionals from the ethnic minority community where the intersection of talent, passion and purpose unlocks true leadership potential and gives wings to aspirations.
Abhi would be delivering the subconscious bias and coaching modules in TRANSCEND.
Abhishek works for Shell, UK and live in Aberdeen, Scotland. With a career spanning 20+ years in multiple geographical locations across the globe, he enjoys staying abreast of technological breakthroughs and challenges faced by the upstream E&P industry deal with the challenge of Energy Transition.
While his day job comprises of leading a team of Workflow consultants deliver digital solutions and workflow support for Shell’s Global business, his interests include developing a better understanding of how to lower CO2 footprint of existing operations and promote low carbon scalable energy solutions. His interests include the subject of carbon pricing and potential impact of climate change policies on investment portfolios, changes to investment strategies and reallocation of capital toward low-carbon or climate-resilient activities. Beside work, Abhi enjoys spending quality time mentoring junior colleagues, interns, and students engaged with several charities and non-governmental organisations.
In his personal life, apart from being a cricket tragic, Abhi is a keen hill walker and uses every excuse to venture out practicing his rudimentary Munro climbing skills in the Scottish Highlands, but that passion is currently in cloud cold storage thanks to Dad’s taxi duties that takes most of his free time.
Oluwabunmi Owolabi
It was a pleasure to work with the team to deliver TRANSCEND to cohort 1. We’re looking forward to cohort 2 to share these bespoke training modules, particularly curated for leaders-in-waiting and the organisations who recognise that now is a critical time to evolve.
Bunmi would be delivering the negotiation module in TRANSCEND.
Bunmi Owolabi is a chartered chemical engineer with the Institute of Chemical engineers (IChemE). She holds a Masters in Chemical Process Engineering from the University College London and has over 10 years’ experience working in the Oil and Gas industry. She began her career with Shell Production Development company (SPDC) as a Production Engineer responsible for managing day-to-day safe operations, production optimisation and emergency response of existing wells and asset portfolio.
She later transitioned to the Air separation industry and currently work as a Remote Operations Shift Manager at BOC Gases UK responsible for the safe and efficient running & execution of all Air separation units (ASU) in various geographical locations across the UK, Ireland and South Africa. She is a STEM ambassador, a member of the Industrial advisory board, Chemical Engineering at the University of Bradford and member of AFBE-UK. Bunmi is passionate about STEM education for children and young adults.
Amitoj Singh
Transcend, is a programme customised towards career professionals from the ethnic minority community where the intersection of talent, passion and purpose unlocks true leadership potential and gives wings to aspirations.
AFBE Leadership Team
Head of Operations, Belfour Beatty
Ami Singh is an energy industry professional with over 18 years of experience. Over his career he has worked for Genesis Energy in New Zealand; SSE, Metso Outotec and Balfour Beatty in the UK. Ami has presented at over 35 conferences predominantly on electrical asset management from 2008 to 2021. Ami is a chartered engineer, a Professional Registration Advisor and a Fellow of the IET. He is an ordinary member on the IET Council, Non Executive Director at Zero Waste Scotland, a Board member at Lintel Trust and Streetfit Scotland, and with the leadership group on the Association for Black and Ethnic Engineers Scotland (AFBE). Ami holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical), Masters in Business Administration (Distinction) and Diploma in Asset Management. Ami is also an inclusion and diversity ambassador, and a member of the leadership board at Association for Black and Ethnic Engineers UK – Scotland.
He is a Non Executive Director at Zero Waste Scotland, Board member – Trustee at StreetFit Scotland, and a BAME officer for Wrexham Glyndwr University.
Ami has an electrical engineering degree, diploma in asset management, and is completing a MBA in Project Management.
Winston Ojei
It was a pleasure to work with the team to deliver TRANSCEND to cohort 1. We’re looking forward to cohort 2 to share these bespoke training modules, particularly curated for leaders-in-waiting and the organisations who recognise that now is a critical time to evolve.
Winston would be delivering the “Calling out” and “Buddying up” modules in TRANSCEND.
Bunmi Owolabi is a chartered chemical engineer with the Institute of Chemical engineers (IChemE). She holds a Masters in Chemical Process Engineering from the University College London and has over 10 years’ experience working in the Oil and Gas industry. She began her career with Shell Production Development company (SPDC) as a Production Engineer responsible for managing day-to-day safe operations, production optimisation and emergency response of existing wells and asset portfolio.
She later transitioned to the Air separation industry and currently work as a Remote Operations Shift Manager at BOC Gases UK responsible for the safe and efficient running & execution of all Air separation units (ASU) in various geographical locations across the UK, Ireland and South Africa. She is a STEM ambassador, a member of the Industrial advisory board, Chemical Engineering at the University of Bradford and member of AFBE-UK. Bunmi is passionate about STEM education for children and young adults.
Eddy Wifa
Transcend, is a programme customised towards career professionals from the ethnic minority community where the intersection of talent, passion and purpose unlocks true leadership potential and gives wings to aspirations.
Eddy would be delivering the Role Model module in TRANSCEND.
Dr Eddy Wifa is an Energy Law lecturer at the School of Law, University of Aberdeen. He has a Masters in Oil and Gas Law with Distinction and a PhD Marine Renewable Energy Risk Governance both from the University of Aberdeen. His research expertise includes offshore energy health, safety and environmental regulation across several jurisdictions, decommissioning, regulatory theories, energy and natural resource governance, energy transition and energy justice. He has advised governments and has been a part of several research projects. He has several publications and has spoken at several conferences and events. He is currently a member of the Aberdeen University Centre for Energy Law, The Centre for Energy Transition and the Director of the African Natural Resource and Energy Law Network (ANREL).
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