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Baachu Talk FM Podcast
A Podcast For Facilities & Workplace Service Professionals
Episode 7: Debra Ward, Strategic Facilities Leader
Baachu Talk FM is a new show produced by Baachu Rain and hosted by Baskar Sundaram where top FM leaders discuss their work journeys to success. My podcast brings fascinating conversations with some of the most experienced insightful facilities services people in the world straight to listeners all over the world!
Join me, Baskar Sundaram on Baachu Talk FM as I explore the world of Facilities and Workplace services thru human stories.
You have the potential for even greater impact and a more satisfying legacy. Listen Now
Today's Guest is Debra Ward
Debra Ward is a true entrepreneur having led, started and sold several businesses across three continents, starting out at just 16!
Currently Debra leads and owns Live Love Learn consulting having just finished a chart-topping year with ISS as their Global Head of Transition and Transformation where she added new service lines, locations and significant review to the benefit of the client and company alike.
Debra’s entrepreneurial drive has seen her take the helm of several companies including: Camm & Hooper, who were awarded a 25-year lease to run events at the iconic Battersea Power Station representing an £800M value; JLL leading Human Experience across EMEA; Condeco where under her leadership sales rose year on year by 32%; and Macro which in her first year showed improved net results by 62%.
In 2007 Debra and her team founded Mitie Client Services which, in only five years, grew to 950 team members nationally delivering a turnover of £25 million. The company was named as one of the best small companies to work for in the Sunday Times Top 100 and received their coveted Special Training award along with Supplier of the year and Best Business Award.
In 2019 Debra was named as one of the top 100 Women to Watch in Hospitality, Travel & Leisure and Women of Achievement winner by Women in the City 2015, and one of the top 10 most influential Women in her field by RICS 2017.
Using this success as a platform to help women, minority groups and those facing challenges has always been important to Debra. This led to her Co-Chairing Gender Balance for ISS, Elected as Chair for IWFM’s Women in FM, founding Mitie’s WOW (Women of Work) initiative, collaborator for Mace Women and providing mentorship to over 40 young women.
In this episode, we will discuss Debra’s
- Life in Canada and the sense of community where everybody knew everybody else.
- Father as a successful owner of bar and restaurant and strong mother with a great sense of ethics and discipline.
- Story of selecting a career choice and realization and high school studies.
- Love for cooking and experimenting along with paddle boarding, reading and travelling.
- Running family business, the unusual experiences it gave and the becoming the expert in it.
- Head-hunted to South Arica and the new experiences it gave her.
- Story of entering UK for the first time and her entry into FM industry.
- Amazing story of becoming the Managing Director at MITIE.
- Journey from MITIE to new roles and amazing experiences in new companies including Mace Macro, Condeco, JLL and other organizations.
- Contributions to Women in FM and IWFM and the ten wonder women who work together for the women in the FM industry.
- Diving accident and how she was told she could never walk again and she came through and proved them wrong.
- Professional and personal influences from her life.
Few random questions
- If you had to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?
- Is there any book/movie character you find similar to yourself?
- What’s your biggest kitchen failure?
- Is there any food you’d happily have every day with every meal?
- If you are inviting a special guest, say from history, who’d you invite and what would you cook?
- When is the last time you wrote a letter to someone?
- If we play a song every time you enter the room, what song would it be?
- What’s your favourite animal?
- What’d be the hardest thing for you to give up?
- What’s the greatest risk you have taken so far?
- Do you spend time at night without your phone?
Key Nuggets
- When you are the daughter of the owner, you have to prove yourself as twice as good to be half as accepted.
- If you can spend 15 minutes every day to find where your centre is, then every challenge you have in life is easily navigated.
- One of the things that made me realize the power that we could have been the story of McDonald’s
- I think we need to start to look at how do we could be of service to the people you serve, then I think the partnership strengthens.
- Travelling is more about looking at the culture, food, interplay between people, how they treat families and the pace of life.
- I had an emotional break down and learned the value of quietening mind and focusing on herself.
- I was one of ten people from Canada to be accepted in the Management Training Programme for CP Hotel.
- One of the greatest advices I got was, “you are a visitor. Make no mistakes about it. No matter how many years you lived there, you are still a visitor. You respect that.”
- I have three great Skills – I can create a compelling vision; I can hire amazing people and I can galvanize people around that vision.
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