Creating a Personal Brand

As part of our focus on National Careers Week and National Apprenticeship week, Helen Brown HR Director at Medtronic visited Pipers this week to talk to the Sixth Form about personal branding. Helen was Deputy Head Girl here at Pipers in 1992/93 and loved her time at the school, citing the belief others had in her over that time as the basis of her successful career.

The Medtronic organisation was founded in 1949 and now employs over 84,000 staff worldwide. The Company specialises in medical technology, their inventions include the pacemaker and a Type 1 diabetes insulin pump.

Helen believes strongly in the power of personal branding, running the women's network for Medtronic in support of this. In her view Sixth Form is a good time for the girls to consider what they stand for and how they wish to represent this to others. In order to demonstrate this Helen ran an exercise with the students asking them to share their perceptions of a number of global brands and then consider how others perceive them and how the companies themselves wish to be viewed.

Helen advised the girls about their CVs and how personal identity comes across to potential employers through the look and feel of this. She also stressed the importance of considering sensible representation on social media. When meeting people and networking she advised the students to be confident about themselves, as you never know where the next opportunity lies.

Helen also talked to the group about her strongly held belief that diverse businesses deliver better business results, so there is a need for more women in leadership. It was an inspirational session for the students, helping them to understand that now is a fantastic time for them to be developing life goals!