Jenny Burns, a year on as Albion CEO
Jenny Burns joined Albion a year ago this week, after almost 25 years client side working for big corporations. Jenny is a positive disruptor; spending most of her career leading transformational and innovative changes in large and complex businesses.
So to celebrate Jenny Burns’ one year anniversary as CEO of Albion, our editorial team caught up with her to have a natter and find out how things are going.
What’s been the highlight of the last 12 months?
Definitely joining Albion. It was a complete career change for me — I’ve moved from working in big corporate organisations to now supporting them from the outside. It’s also been a massive learning experience becoming a CEO and looking at things from a different perspective.
Describe the best part of your day as CEO?
I love the variety of what I get involved in; no two days are the same. My role involves leading and coaching my team, bringing in new business and getting stuck into client projects. And I just love getting a window into other people’s businesses, so I guess the biggest highlight is when I’m off site with a client. I was with the Bupa Commercial Insurance team all day yesterday and the energy was fantastic. I love spending time inside our clients’ businesses.
What do you enjoy most about the jump from client side?
I love that I now get to work with such a variety of businesses from different sectors and all at the same time. They all have different challenges, which makes it more rewarding and stimulating.
What sort of challenges does Albion help clients to answer?
We relish really big challenges and we help people solve those challenges or business problems by creating new brands for them, developing new products and services and also moving their culture on to be able to sustain the things we create.
What’s the most important ingredients to making transformational change work?
The key ingredient to making transformational change is people. Technology is only part of the answer — that’s the easy bit — you can throw money at that and build stuff, whereas if people aren’t on board then it will fail. People are definitely the key ingredient.
What are the characteristics of a good changemaker?
Changemakers come from far and wide — they can be any level in an organisation, it’s not about seniority. It’s about the behaviours that they exhibit; they have to be a really good influencer; communicator; a good leader of people; and finally they have to be a collaborator and a team player.
It’s International Women’s Day today, do you have any career advice for aspiring female leaders?
My advice is don’t be intimidated by the male dominated environment we find ourselves in and don’t become an alpha-female. You don’t have to be masculine to be successful. Women are important for diverse reasons and should harness their unique skills and capabilities. For example, empathy and emotional intelligence are typically female traits and both are really important for connecting with people and customers. As soon as you become an alpha female, you’ve lost the whole reason we need women in senior roles.
Sophie and Aish in my team have written a thought provoking article on the subject of International Women’s Day — be sure to check it out.
Who inspires you and why?
Lots of people have inspired me over the years but I would say the people who inspire me most is the team here at Albion. They’re all like minded people, they are up for change — you never get any resistance — and they are all super-smart. I love them all
So what’s next for this year?
This year we are working really hard to really to describe what Albion does so clients can understand it. That’s our big focus. Second focus is building the Albion brand for what we want to be known for, and the third focus is developing the team through our Living High Street initiative, so look out for the Albion team hitting the high street this Summer!
