Meet jackie, Our founder

Thinking partner for hospitality

sTRATEGY - LEADERSHIP - pROGRESSION

My personal belief

No matter what your story, culture and experiences, everyone should have equal access to professional progression and personal growth to achieve your definition of success.

a little bit about my story

I was brought up by immigrant parents, they were Irish and they ran many pubs for Ansell's Brewery. Some of which were in Small Heath and Handsworth in Birmingham - very multicultural areas, our customers included prostitutes and drug dealers. We lived through riots and no-one was judged, they were all part of our community. I was exposed as a child to my parents running businesses and had the opportunity to meet Directors and Area Managers. What I realised was that these experiences gave me a career advantage as I had confidence and no fear after being around these influential people.

I never thought I was ambitious, but always strived to achieve more and felt progression to the next step was within my reach. At the age of 32 when I was approached for my first Director's position, no one was more surprised than myself. I thought...how did this happen!

Within 2 years I was juggling a career, a husband and a second child on its way, which is no mean feat. 2002 was the hardest year of my career; I lost my father in the March and then in the Dec at 22 weeks pregnant I lost my daughter, which was truly devastating for me. I am a glass half full person and my recovery was aided in 2003 and the birth of my third daughter Emily, which I'm eternally grateful for. These experiences have made me who I am today, over the years has given me a lot of strength and makes me be a lot more empathetic and vulnerable as a leader which has served me well in my career.

During these life experiences, I also managed to enjoy a successful career as an Operations Director with a £30 million P&L responsibility. You can explore my career further by visiting my Linkedin profile, please click here.

If I could give one piece of career advice it would be.... do not depend on others to make your career happen, own it, take charge and believe in yourself. If I could give two pieces of advice it would be, know your value, the contribution you make to the business and be able to articulate the value to others.

Want to take the first step? We're here to listen. Get in touch today.

Get in touch

Jackie has walked in her client’s shoes, researched the barriers and enablers, has the credibility to share lived experiences, be current and can tailor the support.

- Neil Griffiths, Non Executive Director, Coach and Mentor

associates

Jackie, our founder works with several associates and supplier partners that all contribute to the BE BRILLIANT experience.

Our key associates include:-

Karen Turton - A leadership and development specialist

Karen has built a career within the hospitality industry that has so far spanned over 25 years. She started at a grass roots level running nightclubs and pubs before moving into the Learning and Development arena where she became the group training manager for Choice Hotels Europe.

During this role she was awarded one of the Caterer and Hotelkeeper prestigious 30 under 30 awards that then led her to move back into an operational role within pubs.

The next decade saw her gain credibility as an operations manager and she further enhanced her skill set with a move into marketing where she headed up the value food brands within Spirit Pub Company as the concept manager. In 2005 Karen was named as one of the 6 finalists for business woman of the year at the Publican awards.

Following a successful career in pubs that saw her named as a finalist in the ALMR operations manager of the year awards she was headhunted by Nando’s to be their first ever female regional director to be appointed, where she remained for over 2 years before becoming UK operations director at Turtle Bay.

Karen, has a passion for leadership that she combines with learning. In 2013 she successfully gained a distinction at Masters level in Multi-Unit leadership after spending time researching the millennial generation and leadership impacts.

Christine Oxford - A career development coach

Christine has worked in the hospitality sector all her career, coming from Blackpool it was a given she would do. She started working in B&Bs at the age of 13. Progressed to hotels, bars and nightclubs then Instore & specialist catering working through the ranks of management.

Her first area management role was for a small regional brewer where she learnt her trade, working with operators who ran their own businesses and was hooked. Her first senior management role was a scary moment, where she knew she could do the job, but had no proper preparation or training for it. All she knew was that she did not want the teams she worked for to feel, having experienced some interesting management styles of some of her previous bosses.

Christine has been one of a very few women appointed to a board of brewery owned pub estate board. She currently runs her own business supporting their strategies for growth, income protection and advising businesses on operational expertise.

our brand dna

As the BE BRILLIANT brand ambassadors, we 'live and breathe' the following values and beliefs everyday in the work that we do with our clients which makes up our brand DNA.

Create better futures -

Start with the end in mind

We inspire BIG thinking and create a better future by starting with the end in mind, to have clarity of your destination. We enable you to raise yourself above the day to day thinking, take a helicopter view, see the art of the possible, create momentum and achieve your vision of tomorrow.

Courageous conversations -

Curious and no-nonsense

We create safe and non-judgemental spaces, to get curious and to have no nonsense conversations, establishing what is getting in the way of BRILLIANCE. Our supportive, impartial and objective approach allows us to call you out, improve decision making, challenge the status quo, hold you accountable and thus empowering you to have courageous conversations too.

Play to Win -

Be brave, be bold, be strategic

We play to win by co-creating strategic pathways, turning your vision into a reality. Fascinated by the bigger picture, we help you to join the dots, think strategically, be open minded and be brave to extend beyond what is possible.

We're in this together - Unlocking potential, achieve success

Our relationships and the collective successes we achieve together matter. Unlocking your potential or that of your teams is at the heart of what we do. We don’t want you to need us, we want you to value us. We are invested in you and your personal successes. It’s just in our nature to go above and beyond - unconditional support, loyal, approachable. We want everyone that we work with; individuals, teams, businesses, associates and supplier partners to benefit from our work and to be BRILLIANT.

Empowering you to own it -

(Whatever 'it' is)

We empower you to be the expert, own your narrative and achieve your definition of success. As part of this journey, we want you to really know and understand yourself, leverage your strengths and mitigate your blind spots. We facilitate the discovery, design and navigation of your strategic pathway, creating momentum and leveraging your potential with a positive mindset. Build your plan and implement it!

Cultivating discovery -

Every day's a school day

We understand the journey is as important as the destination, it’s not just about the outcome, we create sticky and memorable learning so you're in good shape when you realise your vision or achieve your success. We create environments that encourage you to keep discovering, growing and learning new things every day. We believe you're never the finished article!

Really thought provoking topics covered about inclusion, support and facilitation of success (predominantly for women, but actually for all!)

- Emma Tice, Partner, Employment

Law and HR, Geldards LLP

our research

In 2019, we decided to undertake some research to help us understand the challenges that women and minority groups are facing in the hospitality industry which is stopping them from progressing their careers.

The ambition of this research was to understand better why steps to date have been so ineffective, by getting under the skin of what really helps and hinders women as they try to advance their careers. This meant getting into the fine detail of people’s actual experiences, getting into the emotional heft that lies behind the well-known headlines and data.

At one of the main award ceremonies in hospitality for operators we noticed that only 20% of the finalists were women and yet 50% of the awards went to women. Furthermore, when we looked at the promotions post the awards, women enjoyed very few promotions and all of them had left the business to gain the promotion.

Looking ahead, we would love for the hospitality sector to truly grasp and recognise these issues that women are facing with their progression.

What we need is a more strategic approach across the sector. Senior executives collaborating and more of the trade press and industry bodies working together on how we create career pathways for women and promote it.

So many reports have been produced, it’s a no brainer, those businesses that have a more diverse workforce are achieving greater results, so there is a massive benefit in looking at the challenges that women are facing.

View our research

I am Remarkable Silver Tier Facilitator

Jackie is also now a Google #IamRemarkable silver tier facilitator. She runs FREE workshops helping people to gain the confidence to self-promote for themselves and others in a safe space.

Giving back is a very important part of what she does and enabling people to access FREE development is a feature of her work.

Be sure to look out on her social media channels when these FREE workshops will be running – everyone is welcome.

Some of the past statements from previous sessions include:-

“I changed an exploding nappy and contributed to the workshop at the same time.”

“I’ve moved the dial from 5% women in our business to 50%”

Get in touch

Jackie is a mentor for Plan B, an advisory board member for Be Inclusive Hospitality and a

silver tier facilitator for I AM Remarkable

Underpinning her work, she has a professional certificate in coaching from Henley Business School and she is an authorised partner for Everything DiSC and the 5 behaviours of a Cohesive Team.