New Year, New Networking?

And just like that, another new year has rolled round in the blink of an eye!

The beginning of the year is a particularly exciting time for a number of reasons – not only is it a time for reflection on the things that worked well (or not so well) last year, but also a time for inspiration, whether that’s the inspiration needed to set (and then stick to) your New Year’s resolutions or the inspiration gained from seeing the success of others around you!

Join our Grow Your Network Committee for its first event of the year, where we will hear from an inspirational panel of speakers from a variety of industries and career pathways, who will share how they navigated their paths to success, how they built up their professional networks, and any other hints and tips to help you on your journey.

Our speakers include:

Russ Hill

Russ Hill is a partner in our Restructuring & Insolvency Group based in the Birmingham office. Russ advises on all aspects of banking and restructuring work, including both contentious and non-contentious insolvency, acting for banks, asset-based lenders, insolvency practitioners, corporates and other key stakeholders. Russ has significant experience of all aspects of distressed lending, accelerated corporate disposals, restructuring and security reviews.

Kathy Cooper CPA, CA

Kathy Cooper started her career in public practice, moving on to finance controller/director roles in various manufacturing/distribution organisations in Canada. She moved to the UK and entered the IT industry, joining ICL as a divisional finance director. She changed her focus to change management and started at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) as the change/transformation manager in 2001. In 2008, she was appointed to the position of director of corporate audit to set up the corporate audit department after JLR was sold to Tata Motors Ltd. She retired from JLR in 2021 and is currently a non-executive director for The Strive Group (TSG) Ltd., council member and audit committee chair for Aston University, audit committee member for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and a visiting lecturer at Birmingham City University on the MSc Internal Audit and Consultancy programme. Kathy is also an accredited business executive coach and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioner, coaching and mentoring people throughout her career.

Amber O’Connor

Amber is a Commercialisation Manager, specifically focused on Digital products and services. She joined the industry as a technical apprentice at 16 but didn’t know at that point that she wanted to be an engineer - she just enjoyed design and figuring out how things worked. Since then, she has established a 12-year career within engineering and loves the diversity of the industry and the vast opportunities available. Amber won the EW BrightSparks Award, WeAreTheCity Rising Star Award within the Science and Engineering category as well being recognised as one of the top 6 IET Young Woman Engineers in the UK in 2019. Amber’s ambition is to change how engineering is seen by the young people of today, remove the stigma and incorrect preconceptions. She also wants to be a positive role model – you can be a career driven woman in the industry whilst also being an amazing mum.

Hannah Watson

Hannah Watson has over 14 years’ experience in the accounting world; she joined the team at Grenfell James in 2009 and has been a director since June 2020. As client director – and leading client operations – she has been a fundamental pioneer in embracing and using technology to achieve long-term success for Grenfell James and its clients.

Whether you are still embracing the “New Year, New You” mantra, or simply feel now is the time to Grow Your Network, we would love to see you there. Our Grow Your Network programme creates opportunities for young professionals to build relationships that can be nurtured over time, so it will be a great opportunity to mingle and catch up with contacts!