Oakleaf Partnership

We kick off 2023 with Amy Morris, UK Managing Director, talking to Helen Hodgkinson, Chief People and Places Officer at TLT. Helen has achieved some fantastic results across her career particularly supporting women in the workplace. Starting her career in L&D Helen has purposefully developed a board toolkit, she shares her ambition to do the right thing and of her inner desire to find solutions to problems.

Throughout the conversation we talk about how hurdles are everyday events and need to be treated as such, the importance of data and targets, being a sandwich leader and giving herself the space to overcome challenges through working out the plan. It was inspiring to hear how Helen has created barriers to protect the balance of all areas of her life – including her regular disconnected time.

Helen discussed what she wants to be famous for…personally I think people will remember her for being authentic and creating an environment for others to do the same. Please listen in to hear Helen’s story.

'We’re wired for story … we do this because we feel the most alive when we're connecting with others and being brave with our stories - it's in our biology.' Brené Brown.

This week Amy Morris - UK Managing Director, has the pleasure of speaking to and sharing Uma Creswell’s story. As above, Uma believes in the power of sharing people’s experiences, allowing you to build strong and long-lasting relationships.

Uma is of Indian heritage, born in Uganda and found herself navigating her career in the then male dominated environment of financial services. Within this podcast, we hear of the sacrifices and compromises Uma has made in order to have a career and the honesty of some of her regrets within it.

I have many take aways from our conversation but to share a few: don’t underestimate the power of being kind, building allies, the importance of lateral moves and most importantly, don’t forget to ask! Please listen in to hear more about Uma’s inspiring journey to date.

Today, Amy Morris, UK Managing Director, speaks to Nicky Acuna Ocana who is the UK, Europe and USA Managing Director of Ambition. Having recently been recognised as one of the Staffing Industry Analysts’ (SIA) most influential women in recruitment for 2022 it was a joy to be able to hear and share her story.

Starting life in Blackpool as a daughter of business owners Nicky always knew she wanted to be a ‘Leader’. The chat takes us through her first few weeks/months in London working in the iconic Harrods store, to her making the move into recruitment, navigating all of life’s ‘bumps’ in the road of which in her words ‘there has been some big ones’!

It's inspiring to hear not only of Nicky’s resilience, but her passion and desire to continue to share her story to make it easier for others – in her words ‘giving people space to be themselves’.  To hear more about Nicky’s story please have a listen….

Amy Morris, UK Managing Director, speaks to Zoe Walters who lets us into her world, sharing her experiences of being a senior female in the workplace. Having started life on cruise ships travelling the world, she quickly found that HR was a professional home for her working for brands such as Conde Nast, Adidas and Diesel. She now is a published author, coach, student, CPO and business owner whilst enjoying life between the UK and Miami.

Tune in to hear Amy and Zoe talk through topics such as acting like a man, redefining who she is, feeling the need to hide illness, imposter syndrome and her desire to ‘be somebody’. In Zoe’s words ‘life is like a lilo’… it's all about balance.

For National Payroll Week, Sam Field welcomes to the podcast Vickie Graham - Business Development Director at The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP). Vickie discusses all things payroll with the main focus on national payroll week, how the CIPP has been celebrating with the payroll community and what they do for their members.

This week we welcome Tim Henry, Partner at Peoplecorp in Sydney, Australia. Tim made the move himself from the UK to Australia back in 2007 and now continues to help other Brits do the same. During this episode, we explore the ins and outs of how Brits can make the move across the pond with a HR role secured for them in Australia. We also cover information about the Working Holiday Visa, what to expect while living in Australia along with helpful websites and groups that you can join.

Amy Morris, UK Managing Director, speaks to Katharine Sherwood who shares her story and experiences of being a woman at leadership level. Katharine has had an impressive career working internationally across a number of well-known brands in both generalist and more specialist roles. She holds a huge passion for promoting the female agenda within the workplace which only grew in her previous role at BT as Diversity and Inclusion Programme Director.

In this podcast we hear Amy and Katharine talk about the importance of giving women access to broader networks, providing sponsors, exploring your authentic voice, balancing work and home life and taking risks. Katharine shares some of the positive experiences she has had where she has felt backed and supported to create her own pathway and explains that she has learnt from the more challenging ones!

For the first payroll podcast, we welcome Maria Mason - National Payroll Partner at BDO. Maria is a forward-thinking payroll professional who has developed and grown payroll functions from the ground up. She has done this by hiring at the junior level giving them the tools to develop and grow successfully in a time scale that works. By using this model all of her senior management team have come through this pathway and are living proof of the process. 

This week we discuss how to develop & train payroll functions internally and discuss what has made this work for Maria and her team.