Essential Management Skills 2023

University of Leicester, Leicester

19 April 2023 - 21 April 2023

Bookings for this event are now closed

Overview

	"The Essential Management Skills conference provided me with a great insight into leadership and management early in my career that accelerated my understanding of these topics, gave me a chance to network with other early career engineers from different sectors, and showed me a range of industrial facilities across the UK." Giles Hartill, Deputy President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers

"I attended EMS back in 2018, and I loved it! My role at the time didn't call for personnel management, but I knew these skills would feature at some point in my career - and I can now see just how invaluable that conference was. It is also a brilliant opportunity to meet and work with like-minded engineers from different backgrounds and industries – and I guess such events are especially valuable nowadays given the changes to working habits in the last few years. Definitely attend if you get the chance!"
Maira Bana, Co-Chair, IMechE Construction and Building Services Division

What are you doing to hone the leadership and managerial skills you need to take your career to the next level?

Leading and managing people, projects, or teams, requires more than a high degree of technical knowledge. Just like any skill, becoming an effective manager and leader takes effort and attention.

The IMechE Essential Management Skills conference offers three days of workshops, networking, and site visits to equip early-career professionals with the knowledge they need to make the step up in their careers. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from experienced professionals and engage in hands-on engineering challenges to practice the skills being taught.

With businesses emerging from COVID-19 to a new and rapidly changing professional landscape, it is more critical than ever to take a proactive approach in developing and supporting engineering leaders of the future.

Remote and hybrid working practices are now routine for many businesses and employees, organisations can no longer rely on developing engineers picking up communication and teamwork skills ‘by osmosis’ in the office environment. This conference is perfectly placed to address these challenges head on in an intensive, face-to-face environment. In addition, attendees will have the chance to network with their peers and leaders in the engineering field, building valuable connections that can enhance their professional development.

The event:

Presents management competencies as learnable skills, in a structured and interactive manner, putting these on the same footing as technical skills
Encourages early-career engineers to engage in activities to foster teamwork and think in different and innovative ways
Features high-profile plenary keynotes sharing their wealth of experience leading in industry
Puts attendees on the path to excellence in their careers.

Join this event to:

Develop managerial skills which will prepare you to take the next step in your career, and look great on your CV
Network with experts from a breadth of industries, forging relationships that could last throughout your career
Take up the chance to attain the industry-recognised CMI Level 3 Award in Principles of Management and Leadership
Have fun! Take part in social activities with other early-career engineers

As well as a 15% discount on registration fees, organisations booking 3 or more delegates will have the option to be listed as a sponsor. This includes your company’s logo on the event website and other promotional materials, and is a chance to demonstrate your commitment to developing the next generation of leaders in engineering. Email us

Support your career development

Attending this event supports your Professional Development; if you're an IMechE Member, this can be tracked in the Career Developer section of your online account.

Covid-19 guidance for attendees:

The Institution takes every endeavour to operate all our events as “COVID-safe” as possible. This includes additional preventative measures, such as cleaning rotas and air ventilation. For further information on our activities in this area, view our infection control solutions webpages.

Day 1

09:00 - Programme

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	Wednesday, 19 April 2023
	Attendees will have the opportunity to attend one of two industry site visits: Red Bull Racing, Milton Keynes 12:00 – 14:00 The Manufacturing Technology Centre, Coventry 11:00 – 13:00
14:30	Registration Registration will be open from 14:30 – 16:30
16:30	Chair’s introduction Stephen Brown, Essential Management Skills 2023 Organising Committee Chair
16:35	Plenary Keynote 1 The importance of leadership in our Net Zero journey Helena Rivers, Director – Net Zero, AECOM and Vice-President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers
17:10	Networking Reception
17:40	Engineering Challenge 1 Take part in team-based tasks that test your engineering and collaboration skills
19:20- 21:00	Dinner

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Day 2

08:00 - Programme

Jump to Day 1 | Jump to Day 2 | Jump to Day 3 | CMI Mandatory Workshops | Workshops

	Thursday, 20April 2023
08:00	Breakfast
09:00	Plenary Keynote 2 Entrepreneurship As A Career Option - Why Engineers Are Best Placed For Entrepreneurship Raam Shankar, President, TiE UK North and Co-Chair, TiE Global Sustainability and Impact Group
09:45	Workshop Session 1 Attendees will have the opportunity to attend one of the following workshops. Further details of workshop facilitators can be found on the next page. Further details of the workshop content can be found on the website at www.imeche.org/ems. Mandatory CMI workshops are highlighted.
	Manager? Leader? – What’s the difference?
	Solving Problems Innovatively
	Accounting Basics: How to read a balance sheet
11:15	Networking Refreshment Break
11:30	Workshop Session 2 Select one of the following workshops. Mandatory CMI workshops are highlighted.
	Leadership Communication – building relationships and getting your message across
	How do I lead when I’m not their manager?
	Embracing Hybrid Working: Leading and thriving in remote teams
13:00	Networking Lunch
14:00	Workshop Session 3 Select one of the following workshops. Mandatory CMI workshops are highlighted.
	Manager? Leader? – What’s the difference?
	Barter With The Best And Other Negotiation Approaches
	Giving Feedback: handling difficult conversations
15:30	Networking Refreshment Break
15:50	Plenary Keynote 3 Incorporating best practice from Military Engineering leadership and development into Civilian Engineering Dave Edmondson, Head of Engineering, Avara Foods
16:20	Plenary Keynote 4 From Pubs to Subs: Graduate Engineer to Engineering Manager Nick Hanson, Engineering Manager, BAE Systems Submarines
16:50	Plenary Keynote 5 Diversity and Inclusion – Changing the game Jeff Greenidge, Director for Diversity, Association of Colleges
17:20	Question and Answer Panel Dave Edmondson, Head of Engineering, Avara Foods Nick Hanson, Engineering Manager, BAE Systems Submarines Maira Bana, Past-Chair, SheCanEngineer; CFD Manager, RED Engineering; and Co-Chair, IMechE Construction & Building Services Division Jeff Greenidge, Director for Diversity and Governance, Association of Colleges James Dornor, Industry Engagement Subgroup, Association for Black And Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE-UK)
18:00	End of Day 2
18:15	Networking Reception
19:15	Conference Dinner

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Day 3

08:00 - Programme

Jump to Day 1 | Jump to Day 2 | Jump to Day 3 | CMI Mandatory Workshops | Workshops

	Friday, 21 April 2023
08:00	Breakfast
09:00	Refreshments
09:30	Chair’s closing remarks Stephen Brown, Essential Management Skills 2023 Organising Committee Chair
09:45	Engineering Challenge 2 Take part in team-based tasks that test your engineering and collaboration skills
11:45	Networking Refreshment Break
	Workshop Session 4 Select one of the following workshops. Mandatory CMI workshops are highlighted.
	Leadership Communication – building relationships and getting your message across
	Building Bridges: Navigating Diversity in Engineering Teams - presented by SheCanEngineer Maira Bana, Poppy Harrison & Laura Hoang
	Commercial Skills
13:45	Networking Lunch
14:30	Close of Conference

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CMI Mandatory Workshops:

Manager? Leader? What's the difference?
This workshop will provide you with a practical understanding of the roles and responsibilities of both managers and leaders and will enable you to understand when you need to lead and when you need to manage. Every role we take on, whether in our professional lives or even in our personal lives requires some management skills and some leadership skills. However, you cannot lead without followers. People will choose who they wish to follow and invariably they follow people who they trust, who inspire them and who act with integrity.

Leadership communication – building relationships and getting your message across
Leadership is largely about influence and in order to effectively influence you need strong communication skills. Developing a powerful and flexible communication style is a great addition to an engineer’s toolkit and is a fundamental skill for effective managers. This workshop will help you develop your communication skills in the short term as well as focusing on the importance of communication in leadership and management roles. Attending this workshop will help you to communicate more clearly, improving the way you interact with your colleagues.

Workshops:

Solving problems innovatively
Want some structured ways to create unstructured thinking (and therefore novel approaches & ideas)? Then this is for you. An intense, highly interactive workshop providing engineers (and those who work in an engineering environment), with a variety of creative tools & innovative processes guaranteed to raise their own effectiveness when problem solving and seeking new ideas. The session demonstrates that everyone has creative potential by getting participants to try tools for generating & filtering options, developing the most appropriate and seeing examples of when best to use each tool. Participants will be able to use these skills in the workplace to make more effective, efficient and creative use of people’s time when working in teams to solve problems.

How do I lead when I'm not their manager?
Do you find yourself in a leadership position but without formal management authority? Perhaps you are responsible for delivering projects using contractors where traditional line management is less applicable? Perhaps you are the technical expert and prefer a technically focused career path – you still have to get things done through others but can’t tell people what to do? In any case, these scenarios represent complex business relationships and you need to be able to lead and influence those you work with.

Giving feedback: handling difficult conversations
No feedback no progress. That is true for individuals and companies. Doing a good job these days is not enough. You and everyone else in your organisation need to be seen as competent by others and to be open to suggestions & ideas they may provide on how you can improve the way you work. So why is it sometimes so difficult to convince others to embrace feedback? This vital activity can make the difference between a vibrant, productive and motivated workforce and one that is demoralised and often focusing on peripheral rather than core issues.
This workshop will provide you with the confidence in delivering feedback and build your knowledge and skills to both deliver and receive it with the help of some tools/frameworks.

Commercial skills
Contribute to business profitability by understanding and applying basic commercial principles. This module will provide a understanding of the commercial world and how to deal with real issues including handling suppliers, demanding customers, as well as exploring opportunities to increase value and gain competitive advantage. Based on practical case-studies this is an opportunity to gain a foundation in understanding how engineering and commercial skills complement each other.

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Helena Rivers: Director – Net Zero, AECOM and Vice-President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers

Helena is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. She is Director of Estate Decarbonisation at AECOM supporting both public and private sector clients on their journey to net zero focussed on their existing real estate assets.

Helena started her career in the nuclear industry but has spent the last 16 years working in buildings. She is passionate about sustainability and supporting our journey to net zero with both the great opportunity and responsibility that bring for Engineers.

In 2019 Helena was named as one of the most influential women in engineering by the FT and in 2022 won the WICE award for digital innovation.

Helena joined the Trustee board in 2017 and has served for five years as an ordinary Trustee, during this time she has worked on and chaired the Audit and Risk Committee before moving on to chair the Real Estate Strategy Group. Throughout her time on the board Helena has also been Vice Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Nick Hanson: Engineering Manager, BAE Systems Submarines

Nick Hanson, Engineering Manager – Strategic Weapons Test Organisation, BAE Systems – Submarines. Having completed a Masters in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Aberdeen, Nick eschewed Oil & Gas to enter the Defence Industry, joining BAE Systems’ Graduate Development Framework. Upon exiting the Graduate Scheme into a specialist team, Nick has spent 10+ years increasing his technical proficiency whilst building a broad palette of competencies in stakeholder management, process development/improvement and developing others. Nick now applies these skills to leading a team of Engineers and Supervisors to deliver one of the World’s most complex Weapon Systems on the Dreadnought Class Submarines.

Dave Edmondson: Head of Engineering, Avara Foods

Dave served as an Engineering Officer in the Army for over 27 years where he completed numerous operational tours around the world. He also held a number of Engineering technical roles as well as serving on the Directing Staff at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as both a Company Commander and Chief Instructor training the future Army Officers in command and leadership. Dave’s last appointment in the Army was commanding the Army’s Engineering Command and Leadership School. He retired early from the Army in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Dave has worked in the food industry for over 6 years with Avara Foods and is the Head of Engineering. Avara Foods is the 3rd largest supplier of poultry in the UD, employing almost 7000 people and supplies a number of large Supermarket and Restaurant chains. Dave is an active member of the IMechE and regularly conducts Professional Registration Interviews for IEng, CEng and Fellow.

Jeff Greenidge: Director for Diversity, Association of Colleges

A senior education leader with years of experience, Jeff Greenidge is known for his independent and strategic thinking. Jeff has experience teaching at many educational levels, including primary, secondary, adult education, and postgraduate teaching at Swansea University. After designing and implementing the National Curriculum for the Welsh and UK governments, he spent three years creating European programmes for vocational training. After that, he spent 17 years at learndirect as a director, first in Wales, then in Northern Ireland, and finally in charge of providing education and training to almost 70,000 adults annually throughout the UK. Since leaving Learndirect in 2015, Jeff has worked with community and educational organisations to maximise their impact. He is Currently Director for Diversity at the Association of Colleges and in his spare time he walks and cycles in the mountains of South Wales.

James Dornor: Industry Engagement Subgroup, Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE-UK)

James Dornor has 12 year’s experience in automotive and motorsport industries combined, previously responsible for maintaining all electronics and car systems on a range of Mercedes AMG F1 cars driven by the likes of Sir Lewis Hamilton MBE. He is a qualified and serving STEM ambassador who is passionate about aspiring the next generation of engineers and community members believing any career is possible, through talks, discussions and interactive sessions.

He joined the AFBE-UK's Executive Board in July 2022 having severed as a mentor which 2019. He works with the Industry Engagement subgroup focusing across the whole engineering sector, bringing expertise and accessibility to automotive, motorsport & aerospace industries as his primary focus for the community. This entails hosting events in partnership with the 70 organisations that work with AFBE-UK discussing important topics around ED&I.

Raam Shankar: President, TiE UK North and Co-Chair, TiE Global Sustainability and Impact Group

Raam Shankar, founder of Equitus Design Engineering and Innovations Limited, is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer. His knowledge lies in design, innovation and sustainability solutions with a people focused, and engineering driven approach. He has worked with some high-profile names such as UK Atomic Energy Authority, European Space Agency, UK Research and Innovation, Samsung, Pall Corporation, Babcock Group, Kawasaki, Magtec, Luxfer Gas Cylinders and Ventinova amongst others.

Raam is the current President of Tie UK North, a chapter of TiE Global, one of the largest entrepreneurs’ organizations in the world. He is also the Co-Chair of TiE Global’s Sustainability and Impact group. He is a board member with Manchester India Partnership, a public-private organisation created to foster business and cultural relationships between Greater Manchester and India.

He is a TEDx alumni, STEM Ambassador, presenter, panellist and keynote speaker at various events focusing on innovation, sustainability, design, and entrepreneurship. He is a steering group member in two regional committees in Greater Manchester, and the Honorary Secretary of the Greater Manchester Area Chapter of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE).

He is a frequent speaker, panelist and jury member at various events and awards with publications such as North West Business Insider, Business Cloud and Techblast. He is an advisor to companies in the UK and India, advising on strategy, product, sustainability, innovation, and investment.
He frequently delivers talks and lectures on topics such as Innovation and Sustainability, Minimum Viable Products, Value Proposition and Delivery.

Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities: Sponsorship Team

T: +44 (0)20 7973 1309 E: sponsorship@imeche.org

Event Enquiries: Event Enquiries

T: +44 (0)20 7973 1251 E: eventenquiries@imeche.org

Alternatively, visit the frequently asked questions (FAQs) page.

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Essential Management Skills 2023

University of Leicester, Leicester

Overview

Leading and managing people, projects, or teams, requires more than a high degree of technical knowledge. Just like any skill, becoming an effective manager and leader takes effort and attention.

Day 1

09:00 - Programme

Day 2

08:00 - Programme

Day 3

08:00 - Programme

Helena Rivers: Director – Net Zero, AECOM and Vice-President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers

Nick Hanson: Engineering Manager, BAE Systems Submarines

Dave Edmondson: Head of Engineering, Avara Foods

Jeff Greenidge: Director for Diversity, Association of Colleges

James Dornor: Industry Engagement Subgroup, Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE-UK)

Raam Shankar: President, TiE UK North and Co-Chair, TiE Global Sustainability and Impact Group

Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities: Sponsorship Team

Event Enquiries: Event Enquiries

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