Darley Flying Start Alumni Conference Concludes

By Michael Smith

With the first day of the inaugural Darley Flying Start Alumni Conference coming to an end late Thursday, the alumni headed to The Glonville Hotel for a reception and the presentation of awards for Business Excellence and Leadership Excellence. These awards were voted on by all Darley Flying Start European Alumni with French training sensation Francis Graffard taking home a bronze for Business Excellence, and Darley Ireland General Manager Gerry Duffy winning the award for Leadership Excellence.

The conference pushed forward Friday, picking up on Thursday's panel discussion with a presentation focusing on navigating the information age by Page Group Regional Talent Director Beverley Nicholas, titled 'Your Digital Brand and Business Network'. With both personal and professional social media networks becoming a more integrated part of our lives, the alumni were interested in how to manage these channels, leading to an interactive presentation. One of the key ideas was that word of mouth can quickly become world of mouth, meaning that information travels and becomes viral like at no other time, making it imperative to be cognisant not only of what is posted on social media, but of what happens in public settings. An observation made by Nicholas based on her 20 years in talent acquisition is that a danger of the social media age we live in and a problem that the Page Group are seeing is that many candidates from the newest generation entering the job market are very skilled with online communication, but have a serious skill deficit when it comes to in-person relations and interpersonal relations. In addition to interpersonal relations she also highlighted personal authenticity and the ability to strategically network as two key traits that the most successful individuals have.

Following a short coffee break the conference moved into its final phase by welcoming Ronny Helvey, the Marketing Director at Joules Clothing, to the stage for an intimate sit down chat show-style interview led by MC Jocelyn Targett. One of the ideas highlighted by Helvey was the importance of brand authenticity, and that reputation is won or lost on the ability to deliver your vision. The theme surrounding the importance of authenticity was a common thread woven throughout the day, and seemed to strike a chord with the attending alumni. Many of them own their own businesses or are in positions to make hiring decisions at the companies they work for, so how to portray the values of their brand and how to determine the real values and character of potential hires was of particular interest.

Day two wrapped up by revisiting the question posed on the previous day, Global Horseracing; What's Our Brand? The alumni again broke down into small groups to pick up where they left off the day before to try and get concrete ideas down which could then be discussed among the larger group. The ideas and potential answers discussed in this session will be collated and presented to the International Federation of Horse Racing Authorities as a proactive impetus towards continuing to unite and lift the Thoroughbred industry to even greater heights.