Staff and students are warmly invited to attend the faculty’s Careers Roundtable event on Wednesday 23rd February 2022 at 5pm, via Teams.
This is a wonderful opportunity to hear from a range of speakers who have used their language degrees in very different ways. It showcases the sheer range of directions in which languages can take you and will hopefully get you thinking about your own career trajectory.
Our fantastic panellists are:
Nan Gibson
Nan Gibson has been Chief Human Resources Officer at Lidl GB since 2016.
She has a degree in German from the University of St Andrews and started her working life as an interpreter aboard QE2 where she met her future husband. Bitten by the travel bug, she then worked as an interpreter for Northwest Airlines. After moving to American Airlines, she joined the HR organisation there and held a variety of roles culminating in HR Director Europe & Pacific. From there she joined Virgin Atlantic Airways, firstly as Head of Business Partnering and then as Senior Vice President People. A chance encounter, and her HR experience and knowledge of German, saw her change industry to join Lidl in September 2016. She now leads the HR function for 27,000 colleagues and uses her language skills regularly.
She is still passionate about travel and lives in London with her husband. She has two grown-up sons and two small grandsons.
Felicity Gush
Fliss Gush graduated from St Catz in 2020, having studied French and German. She started working in September 2020 for MarketforceLive as a Content and Conference Producer for their financial services arm. This role was research heavy and saw Fliss produce both virtual and in-person events for 400+ attendees. In February 2022, Fliss moved on and is now working as a Project Consultant for Youth Programmes and Engagement for UK-German Connection. This role is focused on the co-ordination, planning and evaluation of youth events, including thematic seminars, webinars and youth conferences, as well as wider intercultural digital events. Please find UK-German Connection’s website below, if you’re interested in finding out more about what they do: https://ukgermanconnection.org
Ed Howard
After leaving New College in 2003 where he studied French and Italian, Ed got his foot in the music industry’s door by taking part in a number of internships, the first one being in Universal’s Classics & Jazz department followed by a placement in Sony/ATV’s Sync team. He then moved over to the publisher’s A&R department where he started signing and developing key songwriters. Ed then made the jump over to recorded in music in 2008 when he joined Atlantic’s subsidiary label Asylum Records as Label Manager.
While at Asylum he worked his way up to A&R Director and then Managing Director of the label while signing and developing stars such as Anne-Marie, Charli XCX, Rudimental and Ed Sheeran. After bringing Sheeran into the label in late 2010, Ed has guided Sheeran’s career which has seen him sell more than 112 million albums and over 680 million singles worldwide as well as winning countless awards including five BRITs, four Grammys, four Ivor Novellos and four Q Awards.
Now Co-President of Atlantic Records UK, Ed is responsible for overseeing some of the country’s biggest artists, including Anne-Marie, Charli XCX, Clean Bandit, Ed Sheeran, Jess Glynne, Paolo Nutini, Mahalia, Plan B, Rudimental and Tion Wayne. He also looks after the UK campaigns of international stars such as Ava Max, Bruno Mars, Burna Boy, Cardi B, Janelle Monáe, Lizzo, Portugal. The Man and twenty one pilots.
Lindsay Johns
Lindsay Johns is a writer and broadcaster.
He read Modern Languages at Oxford and is currently a (non-residential) Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African-American Research at Harvard University.
He has written for the Evening Standard, The Times, the TLS, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, together with The Voice, Prospect, The Spectator and The Oldie magazines in the U.K., The Root and Africa’s A Country in the USA, and the Cape Argus in South Africa.
In addition, he writes and presents BBC radio and TV arts documentaries.
He is a Fellow of the British-American Project and a patron of the educational charity Shakespeare Schools Foundation.
Since 2005, Lindsay has been a volunteer mentor in his spare time with Leaders of Tomorrow, a flagship leadership scheme for young people in Peckham, South London.
His website is www.lindsayjohns.com
Julia Manstead
Having graduated in 2020 (German), Julia started working at an advertising agency in November that year. She then moved to Ogilvy as an Account Executive in October 2021 and currently works on the Vodafone account. The kinds of projects she does on the account involve creating seasonal adverts, product launch adverts, doing sponsorships with sports teams and events and much more! She loves working in the creative industries and is able to use a lot of the skills she learnt during my degree in my day to day job. If you’re interested in finding out more about Ogilvy and seeing examples of the work they’ve done for a variety of different accounts please use the link below: