BDMA January Webinar 2021: Setting goals and delivering them with agility

Watch our January 2021 webinar: Setting goals and delivering them with agility

“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning” Winston Churchill

Following on from our highly successful webinar, ‘Performing Under Pressure’, we were delighted to bring you our next event, which segmented perfectly from our last discussion.

Creating strategic yet actionable plans is hard enough when you are reasonably confident about the macro environment – the economy, politics, cultural shifts and clear about the micro factors such as customer stability, internal resource etc. Or you simply do what most organisations do – take last year’s plan and budget and add 10%!

How do you create worthwhile plans right now when the only constant is change? Why make a plan at all when it will probably look different next month? How will the removal of the furlough scheme impact you in the short-term, and what do you need to do to assure employee relations remain strong?

In this session, we explored what a good plan looks like and what you need to do to agilely respond to the ever-changing market, while remaining on track. This one hour webinar was chaired by John Thompson, BDMA Chairman and the headline speaker was Cate Russell, Chief Executive at Pilgrims Hospices. Cate and the panel discussed how to set achievable goals and then deliver them with agility.

The webinar took place on Friday 15th January at 1pm on Zoom.

Head shot	Name	Bio
	Cate Russell – Headline Speaker	Chief Executive at Pilgrims Hospices With over thirty years’ experience within the pharmaceutical industry Cate Russell was a global leader in ethical sales and marketing. As the Global Medical Sales Director for the DANONE Group Cate was responsible for driving business across 62 countries. Cate Achieved double digit growth whist working in a highly regulated environment with diverse political agendas, lobbyists, NGO’s and scrutiny by the World Health Organisation. Throughout her career Cate has focussed on leadership during complex change; integrating people and business capability for organisations such as Novartis, GSK, Boots Healthcare and eventually DANONE ELN. More recently as a CEO for a large Hospice group, Cate took on the challenge of restructuring and redesigning the charity; ensuring its long term sustainability whilst addressing the key societal issues surrounding Hospice care. As a certified coach and mentor in the field of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Cate works with individuals to develop insights into what makes an emotionally intelligent leader. Supporting people to develop emotional skills and techniques that have a positive effect from a personal perspective whilst achieving results within the workplace.
	Jodie Hill – Panellist	Managing Director & Employment Law Specialist at Thrive Law Jodie qualified as a Barrister and later cross qualified to a Solicitor in 2013. She became the founder and Managing Director of multi award winning Thrive Law in 2018 . She is the chair of ‘This is Me Yorkshire’ a business led campaign focused on opening the conversation around mental health by sharing personal experiences, including her own journey from mental breakdown to breakthrough. Jodie also joined the Law Society Employment Law committee in 2020. She is very active in the media and appears regularly on Sky News, BBC and ITV. She also frequently appears in print media, including features in The Guardian, The Times, Stylist Magazine and People Management Magazine. Jodie regularly appears on BBC 5 live and other radio stations, taking questions live on air and providing her expert advice to the nation on Employment Law topics and changes in the law to provide clarity for the community.
	Scott Stewart – Panellist	Data, Pricing & Underwriting Project Manager at Saga Services Scott has over six years’ experience in the Armed Forces between 2005 – 2011. In 2011, Scott left the Armed Forces as a section commander, in the 1^st Battalion Princess of Wales’ Regiment. Scott also had one operation deployment to Afghanistan in 2008 and 2009. From 2011 – 2016, Scott was a close protection operative working across the Middle Eastern country of Iraq, but more noticeably around the hostile city of Baghdad. He spent 18 months working with the United States of America Department of Defence, providing personnel protection and security for high ranking military officials and then spent three and a half years within the Foreign Commonwealth Office of Baghdad (British Embassy) commanding and leading small teams, to provide personnel protection and security for foreign dignitaries and ambassadors. Fast forward to today, Scott is now a Data, Pricing and Underwriting Project Manager at Saga Services.
	Damon Blakey – Panellist	Managing Director at Bullerwell Independent Insurance Brokers Bullerwell Independent Insurance Brokers was established in 1982. Whilst being truly independent, Bullerwell is part of the Ataraxia Broking Ltd network of brokers which places over £120,000,000 of premium income. Damon Blakey BA ACII is the Managing Director. Damon has over 20 years’ experience in the industry, including as Director of Corporate and Specialist Risks at one of the largest independent brokers in the UK, where he had overall responsibility for major accounts and affinity partners including The AA, ARI Group and Unipart. He is responsible for the strategic development of the business while maintaining an active client development and management role.