December 7th 2009

Workshop to Build L4W Strategy Model

Leaders4Wales hosted an initial workshop for key contributors to the programme in Langstone on Monday 7th December 2009.

The participants were from South Wales.

A team from the USA presented their 'become a leader' programme over the web. Their programme is successful in the North East of the USA and New Zealand and focuses on creating future leaders by identifying and mentoring them, preferably before they are 30. It is based on a book and programme called A Leader Becomes a Leader - Inspirational Stories of Leadership for a New Generation by Kevin Sheehan. Kevin's intention is to influence the next generation of leaders using an 8 month structured programme and a high quality personalised web portal designed for each participant and his/her selected mentor.

The Leaders4Wales team are using Joel Barker's Implications Wheel. This best practice 'decision enhancing' process is useful for assessing the opportunities, risks and timelines for major projects, programmes and initiatives. 

Workshop participants represented the SME community and the charity/third sector. Building high quality models needs resources and diversity and so the team got off to a good start. The next step in to build out more implications with input from a greater range of people over the next month ot two.

Andrew Crossley facilitated the exploration and was impressed by the speed and quality of the team's initial work, "Having used the Implications Wheel for many years to build models for international clients and alliances, it was great to see the pace and enthusiasm of a new team from the SME and charitable sector in Wales. It indicates the quality of people working in both sectors and reinforces the goals of building a major leadership team in Wales."

For more information on how to get involved please contact us at info@Leaders4Wales.org.


September 10th 2009

GO Wales Member Helps Leaders4Wales team

James Vaile is a member of the GO Wales graduate scheme. He was selected from a high quality short-list of five applicants to work with the Leaders4Wales team in July 2009. James is a graduate of Cardiff Business School's MBA programme. He has been working with Elin Davies, of the sponsor's Newport based management team, on the strategy and business planning phases for Leaders4Wales.

James says, "The initiative's sponsors, in partnership with GO Wales, have given me a terrific opportunity to be exposed to a high level business planning environment. It has been an enthralling experience to be working on the Leaders4Wales initiative. The  programme has enabled me to use the skills learned on the Cardiff MBA programme in a practical working environment."

On behalf of the sponsors, Andrew Crossley says, "James input has been invaluable to the Leaders4Wales initiative. He has been working hard over the summer to ensure he has a thorough grasp of the real world challenges facing small and medium sized businesses in Wales in the current economy. One of the challenges we all need to face up to as a nation is to ensure that bright and capable people such as James are able to contribute to Wales' future wellbeing and build a leading European nation for business."

"The GO Wales team based out of Newport has been highly supportive and responsive to our request for potential participants" says Elin Davies. She would especially like to thank David Hodgins, the Employer Liaison Manager at the University of Wales, Newport, for his inputs and support over the summer. Her view is that The GO Wales scheme is invaluable to potential employers and Davies thoroughly endorse the scheme.