Carmen Mills, Technical Training Administration Manager

Early Career

Although Carmen studied law at college, she actually wanted to begin her career in a secretarial role and joined HSBC working within their IT team. During her 13 years with the company she worked her way up to Telecoms Co-ordinator and then to Procurement Supervisor. HSBC began a re-shuffle and were moving the department to the North of the country, so Carmen took the opportunity and chose voluntary redundancy.

A Change of Priorities

She then took on a new role in a Financial Services company based in the Midlands, as Business Development, helping build new business. She was later promoted to Membership Manager and by the time she left she was managing a team of 8 people. Although she enjoyed her role and stayed for 10 years, Carmen received some difficult news, that she had breast cancer. This understandably brought about a change of priorities for Carmen and with the aim of reducing her work-life stress, decided to leave and take on a less prominent position.

MCP Technical Training’s Gain

This would be to the benefit of MCP Technical Training, as Carmen accepted the role of Co-ordinator. Little did we now at the time, what an absolute gem of a person Carmen is or just how the division would grow with her support.

Carmen originally took the role with us as it was more administrative biased with less pressure and stress, or so she thought! She joined us in 2013. At the time she looked after both technical and management training courses but as the number of courses grew, the divisions were separated, so she could concentrate on just the technical side of our training offering.

We asked Carmen about her time with us to date, she said:

“I really enjoy my role with MCP Technical Training and working with John Saysell, the Director. We have a great working relationship and he has been really supportive over the years. He has pushed me out of my comfort zone at times but this has enabled me to grow within the role.”

The Growth of the Division

When Carmen joined we were providing 2-3 courses a week from both technical and management training divisions. Today, technical training alone is providing at least 5 courses per week, being held as both public courses and on client sites. This growth has lead to more staff being recruited including additional trainers and Julie Shaw, who now works with Carmen and just recently Sarah Matthews, who is providing business development support to John.

The Best Part

We asked Carmen what the best part of her role was, she happily explained:

“Although I have moved away from a business development role I do still get a buzz out of speaking with customers, providing them tailored proposals and winning new business. I am responsible for the organisation of the courses and training. I see each opportunity as a project and have input from beginning to end, when the certificates are given out.

“I work closely with our customers who book the courses and really enjoy building our relationships with them, which in turn leads to more training being booked.”

The Future

MCP Technical Training, with the support and organisation of Carmen, has grown steadily and continues to do so, with courses now being run out of both our Reading and Solihull sites. The courses fill up quickly with most running at full capacity. We asked Carmen what she sees for the future for the division:

“ We are busier than ever. It is essential for us now to streamline our processes across the business and also look for additional or larger premises. With this will bring the requirement for more trainers and again more administrative support.

“I feel really positive and excited to see what the future holds for the department as I know there is huge potential for us to continue to progress and grow.”