PR chief confirmed as new chair of BPS Birmingham Future

THE head of a Birmingham PR agency has been appointed as the new chair of BPS Birmingham Future.

Tara Tomes, owner of the East Village consultancy, succeeds Rebecca Simkiss, joint managing director at Birmingham-based SimkissGuy Recruitment, who has held the post for the past 12 months.

The official handover ceremony takes place at a Birmingham Future dinner this evening at the  Hyatt Regency Hotel.

Ms Tomes, who has been deputy chair for the past year, will announce Kathryn Small, business development manager for law firm Gowling WLG, as her deputy.

Ms Tomes will also be outlining a new partnership between Birmingham Future and Aston Business School intended to help Future members hone their leadership skills.

Applications for the Birmingham Future Leadership Development Programme will open next month.

During its first year, the initiative is looking to recruit up to 30 young professionals to take part in the nine-month programme. The free course has been designed for professionals already in, or moving to, a senior position within their firm and with at least six years’ commercial experience.

There will be nine sessions in all and the programme will cover a wide range of techniques and modules to develop leadership skills and style.

Ms Tomes said: “I have a wide ranging set of objectives to achieve during my year, not least ensuring that our newly launched Leadership Development Programme is a great success.”

Reflecting on her year in office, Ms Simkiss said she was keen to highlight the success of a number of initiatives including, the inaugural Professional Services Week.

She said: “This summer saw the first Professional Services Week. An initiative created to specifically find effective ways in which to engage with young people residing in the city’s schools, and provide them with an opportunity to sample what we called the three d’s. Firstly, to demystify our sector. Secondly, to demonstrate the wealth of opportunities available, and provide hands on skills training. And finally to discover – and this we achieved by holding the sessions at offices of our member firms, bringing young people into the heart of the business community.

“It is already clear that Professional Services Week was a huge success. It delivered on all our core objectives, and schools who participated are already talking to us about how they can be part of next year.”

Ms Tomes said she was looking forward to working with the BPS Birmingham team to deliver Professional Services Week in 2017.

“It is vital that we do everything we can to engage with schools in a sustained and relevant way and promote the opportunities the sector can offer in the future,” she said.

“It is important that we provide opportunities for students, from across the city and region and a range of backgrounds, to come and experience the life that we live every day. We need to break down barriers and showcase what happens behind these big glass windows, to open the minds of the future BPS talent.”