Employee Stories

In my nine years with Firebrand I’ve held 4 different roles: Office Manager, Accounts Assistant, Group Accountant and Financial Accountant. I started as an Office Manager, with very little experience; on my first day I needed help to use the most current version of Microsoft Word!

I had no idea I could be good at Accounting or Finance. I’d mentioned in my interview with Gordon MacLeod, Firebrand’s Group Finance Director, that I’d be interested to learn a bit more about the Finance Department. Luckily he saw more in me than I did in myself and introduced some Finance-based tasks alongside my Office Management Role.

The more Finance tasks that I took on, the more I realised it was the path I wanted to follow. Firebrand supported me to retrain at college and I became AAT qualified. This lead to my promotion to Financial Accountant in 2012, which is the role I work in today.

I joined Firebrand in January 2012 after leaving Barts and the London NHS trust. My public sector experience turned out to be a barrier to finding new employment; unfortunately, employers overlooked the large base of transferable skills I brought to the table. However, one person decided to take a chance on these public sector preconceptions: Kiely Makepeace, Operations Director, offered me a position in the customer service department.

By March 2013, I was offered a new role as an Apprenticeship Assessor with an opportunity to gain a new set of industry-recognised qualifications.

In 2014 my role changed again; I became an Apprenticeship Administration Coordinator supporting recruitment, employer engagement, operations and finance.

A year later, I was promoted to a position of Administration Team Leader and in 2017 I was again promoted to Admin and Funding Manager.

I started working for Firebrand in February 2007. By September 2008, I was promoted to Senior Sales Executive and was awarded best DACH salesperson in 2008 and best Salesperson globally in 2009. In September 2010, I became DACH London Team Leader.

In 2017 I changed to a freelance role with Firebrand to allow me to travel with my family. I like change and Firebrand gives me this flexibility, letting me take my work with me around the world.

So, the bottom line is: I’m living my dream life of working and travelling, simply by being open and loyal to Firebrand. And, Quota Club every year is a nice addition to everything.

My journey with Firebrand started at the beginning of the Benelux business. My stay with Firebrand has been a really positive and proud experience. What we achieved here is something special indeed and something I will never forget.

Our trips are also amazing. Highlights include jumping the highest bungee in the world in Macau and jet skiing the Caribbean ocean in St. Lucia.

I was happily selling and hitting (way above) my targets. When our Team Leader progressed further in her career, Firebrand asked me to step in as Team Leader for the DACH region.

I enjoy this role; being involved in sales and at the same time running a team, making sure they’re hitting their personal goals and targets. This works so well that my entire team made Quota Club!

I joined Firebrand in February 2010 as Communications Officer, when the Marketing team was only three people. I was responsible for all of Firebrand’s content - web, email, design etc. I was named Firebrand of the Quarter in Q3 2013, largely for the extra work that I was doing for the UK business at the time.

This developed into me becoming the UK Marketing Manager shortly afterwards. I became accountable for lead generation for the UK Commercial and Apprenticeship businesses, working alongside the growing Global Marketing team.

Robert Chapman, Firebrand’s Commercial Director and co-founder, asked me to step up to UK Commercial manager in late 2016, which meant I became responsible for the execution of the strategy for the UK business, focused on hitting the gross profit target.

I remain accountable for UK Marketing - now supported by the UK Marketing Team: Alex, Inbound Marketing Specialist; Hollie, Apprenticeships Marketing Manager; and India, Data Marketing Assistant. I also work closely with Firebrand’s UK Sales Managers, Duncan and Susie, supporting them with Sales processes.

I’m the Customer Experience Director at Firebrand and since January 2017 I’m also technically known as the Apprenticeship Operations Director. One of the many things I love about Firebrand is that my role can grow, evolve and change direction at an accelerated pace!

I joined Firebrand in May 2008 as the first Office Manager. Within 2 months I became the Customer Service Manager, 2 years later Quality, then Operations. Now 10 years on I look forward to the next opportunity Firebrand will present.

My journey at Firebrand Training began in September 2010. I started as a Customer Service/Credit Control Administrator for the UK Commercial market. In January of 2012, I was promoted to UK Customer Services Manager and have since lead my own team of 3 Customer Service/Credit Control Administrators. More recently, I have been given the responsibility of chairing our weekly Course Decisions Meeting.

I have always felt valued at Firebrand and I consider myself lucky to work here. No day is the same and I love the customer experience we provide to all our delegates.

We never stop thinking how we can improve the experience and it is also my job to always find ways of providing an experience that is above and beyond.

I joined Firebrand in 2004 as a Sales Executive with five years’ experience. Firebrand (then “The Training Camp UK Ltd”) was a young, start-up. I interviewed with Robert Chapman, one of the two co-founders, and I was very excited to join a young, growing and dynamic training organisation.

The main thing that attracted me was the combination of people/attitude and the fact that I would be offering such a high-end and superior product compared to other offerings in the market. I was very excited.

I worked very hard to establish myself in my new role because I really enjoyed the environment and people I was working with. The rewards came and I progressed to Senior Sales Executive after about 2.5 years, after which I continued to learn and grow as a salesperson and developed better and deeper client relationships.

I have since progressed to become a UK Sales Manager, with up to 11 direct reports. In 2017 we hit our annual team target and travelled to Cape Town, South Africa for that year’s Quota Club.