|
Alumni Newsletter
October 2015
 Welcome to this month's newsletter, which we must open with a big congratulations to Dr Paul Beresford-Hill MBE our Director General, who was elected Chairman of The English-Speaking Union of the United States unanimously at a meeting of its Board of Directors on September 27, 2015. He was selected for his "global experience as a scholar, educator, administrator and author". I am sure you would like to join us in congratulating Dr Paul on this well-deserved appointment.
Meanwhile, on Saturday 3rd October the August 2014 MBA group took part in a Thai cooking class at the Bangkok Thai Cooking Academy for half a day. The trainees learned how to cook Pad Thai, Stir fried chicken with cashew nuts, chicken in coconut soup and mango with coconut sticky rice and made coconut milk. It looks like they had a lot of fun despite the rain, and they were able to enjoy eating their own dishes for lunch (See header photograph above).
Another Institute development is that we have been enlisting the assistance of our alumni at University Careers Fairs and Presentations, and would like to take this opportunity to give all those who have volunteered their services so far a big thank you. We believe it does make a difference having real life alumni present when recruiting new candidates and hope to see this reflected in our application numbers over the forthcoming months.
We hope you enjoy all the articles in this issue and always welcome your input/suggestions.
| |
Update Your Details
We would like you all to give us your current details update, as it helps us to know where you are for future events and various alumni activities as well as update your email subscription. Update your details now.
Alum of the month
Damien de Bruijn
August 2012 - New York
"Working for a small company where one day I was helping out IT as they were short staffed, and the next day driving up to Connecticut to pitch a client, before completing a strategic plan for the business, really helped me identify what I liked most, and what I did not."
Read full story.
|
Upcoming Events in London
Thursday 29th October 2015
Mountbatten Institute London intern and Alumni Halloween Party at Gilgamesh Camden. What can we say, it's become an institution and with, this venue, it's bang on trend! Fully booked!
Entrepreneurial Alumni
 Eion Henderson (May 2004 - New York) has been in the coffee business since he graduated from The Robert Gordon University in 2003.
Eion gives the following account of his career path so far; "A business partner and I opened a speciality coffee shop in my home town of Aberdeen and for the following 8 years we grew the business to a second site. The time I spent in New York on the Mountbatten Programme was instrumental in focusing the business and driving it forward; cafe culture there at the time was much more established than here and provided great inspiration. During the years running the cafes, I learned a huge amount about the different varieties and origins of coffee, different brewing methods, and I started experimenting with various ways of home roasting. After I left the business I had the wonderful opportunity to work under the tutelage of Ian Cukrowski at MacBeans, Aberdeen's premier coffee roaster. It was there I learned more about the roasting process on a larger scale. My wife and I moved to Edinburgh in August 2012 and I opened Mr Eion Coffee Roaster in December of 2013. I have been fortunate to see the business grow over these two years and am hopeful to see that continue. Going forward I am looking to expand the business to include a second site and increase wholesale capacity, while maintaining the high standards, attention to detail and personal touch I am known for. The best piece of advice I can give when setting up a business on your own is to not lose your passion. It's easy to get caught up in the day to day details which sometimes becomes overwhelming. Keep focussed and have the courage to follow your passion."
Thank you Eion, and we hope your business continues to grow. Visit Mr Eion website: www.mreion.com.
Mountbatten Weddings
Autumn Balentine and Anthony Trevison (March 2009 - London) were married on May 30th 2015 in Oxford, MS which is where Autumn comes from and went to College.
As you can see from the photograph, the happy event was heavily attended by other Mountbatten alumni from March & August 2009 intakes. From left to right: Mark McCord, Dave Mengel, Jon Castro, Calvin Chan, Nick Anable, Trent Holland, Kai Kockelkorn, Dmitry Rozenfeld. Front row next to Autumn is Matt McCord.
We are glad you had such a wonderful celebration with all your family and friends, and wish you much happiness in your future together.
A Day in the life of...
 Lauren Brady (March 2011 - New York), graduate of Kings College London is a Senior Marketing Executive at Met Film School based at Ealing Studios in England. Met Film comprises a film school, a film production company and postproduction house. It is currently one of the largest film schools in the UK and in 2011 established a satellite school in Berlin. Lauren gives an account of a typical working day:
Morning: I get into the office early as I go to film events and screenings in the evenings throughout London Film Festival, so this is the best time to read through my emails un-interrupted! I reply to all pressing matters first- usually updates to the website, responding to requests for brand/ social media partnerships from indie film companies or I need to work up some fresh advertising copy for publications like Empire or Sight & Sound. This is my most productive time of the day! There are 5 of us in Marketing, but we also work closely with an Admissions team of 6. Everyone is absolutely film-mad, so we have a lot to talk about! We begin each week with a team briefing, in which we set out our weekly targets and discuss what we're each working on. In such a small team, there's a lot of responsibility! I manage content delivery, including communications and PR, which means that my week is always varied.
Midday: I have a lunch meeting with our PR agency. We discuss possible ties with our school and the greater industry- we've had alumni go on to work on huge projects such as Star Wars, but during the festival we focus on the events in the City. I attend festivals throughout the year, including Edinburgh and Berlin, but London is my favourite because it's home!
Afternoon: I have a phone interview with Sarah Gavron, Director of new film Suffragette. It opened the Festival this week, but she's now in NYC as it's about to open there too. We chat about females working in the industry and get her thoughts about using film as a tool for social and political change. After the interview, I write up a transcript and send it out for pitches. We have a 45% female student population, so anything that I can do to keep inspiring future female filmmakers is vital, and something that I'm hugely passionate about. I have enough time to upload some of Sarah's quotes across social media before leaving for another screening at around 6.30pm.
You can follow Laure on Twitter @laurentbrady or email her at lauren@metfilm.co.uk.
Voluntary Opportunities for Alumni
Alex Smith (September 2007 - New York), founder of North London Cares & South London Cares shares some recently published articles about his charities and voluntary opportunities for you to get involved:
"We must wake up to this loneliness epidemic" - The Times
"Mixing young and old people can extend lives" - The Telegraph
Alex says: "We've got 2 new films about what NLC and SLC do too, which are lovely. We'd love you to pass them on and encourage current and former 'Battens to join us!"
vimeo.com/136701317
vimeo.com/118718187
And each of the charities has a full programme of activities in September (and every month too):
northlondoncares.org.uk/blog/new-term-new-clubs
southlondoncares.org.uk/blog/september-social-clubs
Another alumna, Doreen Thompson-Addo (January 2002 - New York) works as the Programme Manager at The Stephen Lawrance Charitable Trust. Doreen recently got in touch with us regarding some voluntary roles you may be interested in finding out about. Roles include: Marketing Assistant, Jobs Club Careers Advisor, Fundraising Volunteer and Newsletter Designer. If any of you are interested please contact Doreen for an informal chat and/or visit to the Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford.
Tel: 0208 1002800 / 2816
Universities in the Spotlight
Our Entrepreneur this month, Eion Henderson is a graduate of The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, with which we have a long standing relationship, sending us quality candidates for the programme since the mid 1990s. Indeed Andrew Douglas (September 1998 - New York) currently holds the position of Vice President Infrastructure Commercial Services at Credit Suisse, and Paul Sutherland, our Marketing & Recruitment Director for the UK at Mountbatten is also a graduate of the University. In fact Paul will be visiting the University on Monday 16th November for a Drop in Session and Presentation. If you would like to assist with this, please get in touch.
Our "Day in Life of" Lauren Brady is a graduate of Kings College London University which has also sent us a good number of programme candidates over the years. Our London office team attended a Careers Fair and Presentation recently at the University, and another alum of both institutions, Devi Shelat (March 2010 - New York) was able to assist, for which we were extremely grateful. Devi works as a Business Development Specialist at Towry (Financial Services).
Jobs
There are a variety of vacancies on our alumni website at present including a PR Executive at Aldermore in London; White & Case in New York are seeking a People Co-ordinator; and Evaluate Group has openings in San Francisco and Boston. London & Partners have also just been in touch as they have requirements for Business Development Associates in both LA and San Francisco, whilst in London they are looking for a Digital Analyst; Front End Web Developer; Press Officer and Technical & Urban Specialist. These posts and all other current jobs can be seen in full via our alumni website.
Jo Harvey: jharvey@mountbatten.org
Vicki McCordall: vmccordall@mountbatten.org
web: http://alumni.mountbatten.org |