Cambridge Academics inspire the next generation of BT Leaders

Using our brand-new Mill Lane site as a base of operations for BT’s Leader Lab.

The BT Leader Lab programme pulls together future leaders from across BT and equips them with a comprehensive understanding of the emerging technologies that have the potential to affect our networks in the future, as well as thinking from leading business schools on how to lead an organisation through transformation.

BT’s Leader Lab has been taking their cohort of future leaders on the road to a number of partner institutions and recently stopped off at Pembroke College for two days of workshops, networking and a dinner in the historic Old Library. 

These sessions helped to foster a sense of teamwork among the cohort, enabling them to expand their personal networks throughout the organisation.

As a Corporate Partner, BT had exclusive access to our brand-new facilities at 4 Mill Lane which they used to host a number of workshops led by field leading academics from the Department of Engineering, the Institute for Manufacturing, and the Judge Business School.

Alongside the workshops the cohort worked in teams to develop their sustainable growth projects, which will be presented in London to a panel of senior leadership members at BT.

There were four brilliant workshops which offered an opportunity for some horizon scanning both to see what lays ahead in Telecoms and Tech, as well as a chance to learn about developments in Corporate Governance:

• Professor Philip Stiles from the Judge Business School led a session on the elements which make up organisation culture.
• Dr Manuel Herrera from the Institute for Manufacturing discussed his work on the application of statistical techniques to network data as part of the Next Generation – Converged Digital Infrastructure (NG-CDI) programme.
• Professor Michael Barrett from the Judge Business School talking about his work with the development of practice-based models of digital transformation.
• Professor Seb Savory from the Department of Engineering discussed advances in optical communications.
  
   

The leader lab cohort also had the opportunity to get an authentic College experience with a dinner in the 14th Century Old Library at Pembroke College. In this candlelit oak panelled setting, the next generation of leaders had a chance to network with academics from across the University and colleagues from other parts of BT.

Marcus Payne, Senior Manager, Customer Experience at BT and one of the participants said: “Pembroke College gave us the opportunity to expand the scope of our idea of building an Anomaly Detection Ecosystem. Looking at how data could be presented in different ways allowed us to focus on points in the network where more problems could occur – the sessions were excellent, along with the warm welcome and great location.”

Carol Fletcher, Head of Academic and Research Partnerships at BT said: “Exposing our future leaders to the latest thinking coming out of our university partners is crucial to ensure they understand where the threats and opportunities to our business could come from. As a corporate partner of Pembroke College, it’s been brilliant to be able to use the new Mill Lane buildings for these sessions, they’re an excellent, flexible facility.”