To celebrate International Women's Day, we've been talking with inspiring women across the organisation. We caught up with Gemma Stuart-Young, Global Purchasing Director, in special operations and aftermarket, where this year, she got the fantastic opportunity to participate in the Jaguar Land Rover ADVANCE Programme.
“ADVANCE is a cross functional programme aimed at developing the Leadership Excellence of individuals across the organisation that have the potential to become enterprise leaders within their careers. It’s been a hugely positive experience so far, I started the Programme just as I got promoted into my current role, and it's been a great source of support for me through this period.”
"I've been challenged to really understand what makes me tick, what my purpose is, and where I need to continue to grow in order to be a great enterprise leader at JLR. It's a small cohort each year and so teamship plays a key part. I've found being around like minded people who want to be great leaders and help drive our company's success inspiring, motivating and really energising. I am enjoying having the opportunity to really focus on myself, my career and my personal development including my self-awareness as well as having access to a coach and getting some great feedback about my behaviours ('already good' and 'could be better')!"
"Part of the programme involves developing a project and a business case with your fellow team members including a Dragon's Den style pitch to enterprise leaders in the business and ultimately our CEO Dr Speth. Finding the time for this can be tricky, but it's been really valuable to have a good reason to understand and delve into other parts of the business and how they operate as well as on the job learning aligned to my development areas."
"I've had the chance to develop some key leadership skills such as story telling, greater self-awareness, personal resilience and my individual leadership approach and style through a number of offsites and more formal learning. But as ever, the learning really comes from putting these into practice in your every day life. Having the ADVANCE team around me has ensured that I put myself outside of my comfort zone (where the magic happens) and has held me accountable for my personal development."
"The next part of the programme is one I am particularly excited about. It's an external programme called Wavelength where we come together with a number of other organisations from different industries to address relevant topics in today's society and world of business. This also provides the opportunity to visit a number of other companies each facing their own business and industry challenges with common themes around digital disruption, social responsibility, change as the new norm, people engagement and leadership behaviours."
"As a female leader within Jaguar Land Rover, I feel very supported through the ADVANCE programme to be me as a leader and to continue to develop my skills to contribute to the company's success, and ultimately put me in a very good position to potentially take on even greater leadership challenges in the future."
