CAREER ACCELERATOR

An innovative talent management programme helping you to develop your staff

Increasing career fulfilment and positive career moves for women working in higher education

Advancing academic and professional services career pathways.

WHEN's Career Accelerator is the first all-encompassing programme taking a dual approach by accelerating the development of women working in higher education whilst working directly with institutions to dismantle systemic barriers. We challenge the norm by curating a safe space to help women bring their career pathways into sharper focus so that they can make strategic choices about their future.

Our bespoke offering

We know that a one size fits all approach does not work in higher education. That's why our Career Accelerator offering can be flexed to suit your strategic goals.

Examples of our strategic approach in action include:

WHEN worked with the University of Manchester with women working in professional services at grades 5-7 on identifying skills gaps, gaining confidence and increased clarity on their career direction
WHEN worked with UCL on their key strategic goal of creating a fair, collaborative and inclusive research environment. We developed a bespoke programme specifically for UCL's research community which has now evolved into our Research Culture Incubator programme.

What makes us different

Building community

Targeted and strategic impact

Systemic change

Detailed impact reporting

Delivery Format

Our programme remains agile but sessions could include:

Workshop part 1

Day 1

- The power of inclusion

- Energising strengths

- Growth mindset

- Your career vision

Workshop part 2

Day 2

- Your personal brand

- Increasing visibility

- Panel discussion

- Building relationships

Action Learning

Weeks 2-6

Facilitated by an executive coach, Action Learning Sets are a powerful tool that to support you to implement changes during the 6 week period following the workshop.

"As a result of the programme, I feel more confident and motivated within myself to achieve more in my career. It has helped me to focus on my strengths and really hone in on what energises me."

Meet the programme leaders

Marshah Dixon-Terry

Marshah is an executive career and leadership coach who facilitates and enables purposeful, meaningful, inclusive, and sustainable change. Her experience spans from the City of London Police, General Social Care Council, Homes England, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and Versus Arthritis.

Ellie Rich-Poole

Ellie helps leaders land their perfect role and be brilliant in it. She coaches people at a critical moment of transition, to move forward with positivity. She has 25 years’ experience in HR, Talent and Head-hunting HR Leaders. She is a speaker and group facilitator. She is a Mentor, an interview and personal branding coach for the Pipeline and an Ambassador for KidsOut. She was named a LinkedIn ‘Top Voice’ for Careers.

Would you like to bring the programme to your University?

Let us know and we'll be in touch.

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For more information, please see our brochure here

"I highly recommend for women in higher education to take part in this well thought out programme. It’s been very helpful, insightful and inspirational. All the women who ran this workshop have helped me to have a clearer vision on how to have a positive approach to my career."

Career Accelerator in action: being used to transform research culture at UCL

WHEN are supporting UCL to create a fair, collaborative and inclusive research environment that facilitates excellence and where the community supports one another to succeed. Working in close partnership with Emma Todd, Research Culture Director at UCL, we’re supporting UCL to meet their strategic objective around transparent and fair career development. This cultural transformation will be brought about by adapting our hugely popular career accelerator programme to meet the specific needs of early career researchers and research technicians. Both huge populations at UCL, these groups will benefit from the innovative, collaborative workshops and our unique community building approach.

Areas we are covering:
• Making the promotions processes and practices more transparent, inclusive, and aligned all backgrounds and career stages
• Improving the quantity and quality of appraisals of research active staff
• Supporting early career researchers towards improved independence
• Increasing accessibility to, and take-up of, training opportunities
• Increasing awareness and understanding of varied career pathways for early career researchers
• Ensuring fair reward, in line with sector standards

With further workshops scheduled to take place during summer 2024, the first workshops have just finished and we’re receiving rave reviews already!

“It was an amazing experience to be part of this programme! So much to take in and to digest, but I left today inspired and committed to put in action everything I learned and reflected throughout these 2 days. Thank you all!” Dr Juliane Fagotti

“I have thoroughly enjoyed and learnt so much from being in community with you all. Such an enriching experience!” Dr Amy-Jo Lynch