Staff profiles

Amanda Poole

I joined Common Purpose's Birmingham office at the start of September 2009 on a maternity cover contract for 6 months  and have since been taken on as a permanent member of the team.

After spending 6 months travelling (see the picture above), I decided that although I had worked in lots of different sectors, I definitely wanted my working life to be about making a difference. The charity/not-for-profit sector sprang to mind - and hence my time with Common Purpose began.

The key elements that make up my job are event organisation, office administration and sales.  I didn't have any events experience previously so I have definitely learned a lot.  Regionally we tend to work in smaller offices so you get more involved in the overall running of an office. This is interesting as it gives you the chance to see how everything fits together; putting the course together, finance, office systems, marketing and diary management.  I enjoy having that overview, and it keeps the job varied.

Strong organisational skills are important to the role.  On an actual course day or event you have to be very much in the moment,  be able to multi-task and deal with anything that unexpectedly comes up.

Gemma Nagelsztajn

I joined Common Purpose as a Course Co-ordinator at the Tyne and Wear office in November 2007. Prior to this I had been an Events Co-ordinator at a large venue complex in Newcastle upon Tyne city centre.

Working for Common Purpose has been a completely new experience for me and has exposed me to many new practices and challenges in my working life. For instance, I've learned to transfer my event organising skills from my previous job to organising events in totally different venues - such as a prison - which require much more planning and organisation.

This is not your usual office job and you are actively encouraged to go 'out and about' in your local area to explore new and exciting venues in which to hold some of the Common Purpose leadership development events.

"I've learned to transfer my event organising skills from my previous job to organising events in totally different venues - such as a prison"

There is a great balance of completing the administration side of my role in the office and actually being away from the office helping to organise and oversee the running of course days or visits. A huge benefit of being part of the Common Purpose team delivering the course is that you actually get to listen to these inspiring speakers as they present to your participant group. However the best part of the job is seeing the effects of learning new skills on the participants. It is extremely rewarding to hear of new ventures and projects they are now creating or helping with in the hope of putting right the wrongs they have learned about on the course.

David Riddell

I started working for Common Purpose in February 2008 as Senior Course Co-ordinator in the Aberdeen office. In May 2009 I was appointed to Course Director, taking over from my former line manager.

I reached Common Purpose by a relatively unusual route. After studying Electrical & Electronic Engineering at university, I worked for a number of years for a multinational electronics company where I was responsible for designing the systems and processes to make complex electronic products. In fact the job turned out to be less about electronic design and more about working with other departments, divisions and external stakeholders to get products made and meet everyone's needs. I now find this first-hand experience of leading change invaluable in my role - although I'd have laughed if anyone had said that I was leading at the time!

I'd always been interested in social issues and how communities work together. This was reinforced when, following redundancy, I spent two years travelling and ultimately working in New Zealand and China. After returning to the UK, I saw a job advertised at Common Purpose and was, at first, intrigued - then enthusiastic when I found out more.

My role as Course Director is quite unlike anything I've done before. Organisationally I lead the Aberdeen team (me and a Course Co-ordinator), but we work very closely with the other three offices in the Scotland team. I plan and deliver the Aberdeen senior leaders course and am heavily involved in the Aberdeenshire schools courses and Scotland emerging leaders courses. The day-to-day job involves everything from looking for applications for our courses, designing the course content, briefing inspiring local speakers and continually looking for opportunities to let people know about what we do.

Claire Bennett

I started working for Common Purpose 11 years ago as a Course Co-ordinator in our Kirklees office. Since then I have worked as a Course Manager in Kirklees and as a Course  Director for our courses in Bradford before becoming Regional Director for Common Purpose in Yorkshire almost three years ago.

"It is so satisfying to see people who have used our courses progressing in their careers and being betters leaders in their businesses and organisations, but also in wider society."

My work as a Regional Director is always exciting, but hard work. I am operationally responsible for the courses Common Purpose runs in Bradford, but also responsible for developing and deIivering our leadership development courses for people at the start of their career across the North of England. I manage the team who work with 13-14 year olds in Yorkshire. I work in and lead a small team, looking for applications from a broad mixture of people from different sectors and backgrounds  to our courses, designing the content for the course with relevant speakers, visits and group work activities. Our work is very hands on and I have to switch between thinking strategically about how we develop our activity across the North, to delivering and chairing leadership development courses. I meet a fantastic range of people and learn so many new things every day.

As Regional Director, I am the public face of Common Purpose in Yorkshire and with my colleagues across the region, am always looking for new opportunities for us to develop here. As an organisation which aims to make leaders more effective, it is so satisfying to see people who have used our courses progressing in their careers and being betters leaders in their businesses, communities and organisations, but also in wider society. Being passionate about Common Purpose and the work we do means that I never switch off. I am always looking out for interesting and relevant information we should be including on our leadership courses.

Ethan Ohs

I joined Common Purpose in late 2007. Prior to joining Common Purpose I attended the University of California at Berkeley and Prescott College where I studied experiential learning and multicultural education. While in Los Angeles I managed and developed an environmental education institution. During school holidays I worked for The Painted Turtle a camp associated with Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Charities, developing courses for their leadership courses: training staff; working with young people and developing their corporate leadership business. In the end I found myself teaching and designing the curriculum for courses that worked with 4 - 21 year olds at the Headlands Institute in San Francisco which is when I decided to see the world.

Having studied educational experiential learning techniques and then put them into practice whilst teaching, these skills have come in very useful as my role is to design the content of Common Purpose leadership development courses. Experiential learning can be described very simply - learning by doing, rather than learning by rote. If you do something, reflect on the outcomes, and try it again doing it slightly differently you've learned experientially.

I have become an integral part of the organisation -training staff to build content, understanding, and efficiency on our courses. The result is participants share the challenges they face as they lead their teams, families, organisations and communities.

"On any given day I can be having conversations with staff in Cape Town, Bangalore, London, Belfast, or Amsterdam. My job is to help them create great courses that help people learn better leadership skills."

Common Purpose takes people out of the environment they work in to show them a different perspective. For example by taking a youth leader away from a project on gun crime and showing her the challenges a local entrepreneur faces and vice versa we can create stronger mutual understanding between jobs, organisations and sectors. As the youth worker sees how other people solve their problems and understands the context within which those problems occur she can take specific learning/solutions and apply them in her own job. . Increasing the understanding often increases trust; increased trust increases efficiency.