Leveling Up Leadership: A Conversation with Isobelle Panton

Ever wondered how someone can transition from a team member to a leader? Well, strap in as we sit down with Isobelle Panton, our Northern Power Women Judges Special for Levelling Up Leader, and Director of Student Recruitment and International at University Academy 92.

Isobelle shares her remarkable journey, not just with her career but also her personal evolution. She speaks passionately about the significance of making an impact, and how she transitioned to a role that prioritised making a difference over profit. Hear her compelling insights on the power of leveling up and using one's abilities for the greater good.

Listen to Learn:
🎙️Isobelle's journey in leadership, community development, and higher education.
🎙️The importance of digital platforms in amplifying voices and creating inclusive communities
🎙️How to stay connected with role models and advocates
🎙️The key to finding the right community to lead

Listen here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1981646

#NPWPodcast #ListenNow #Podcast #WeArePower

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:38

The Northern Power Women.

Speaker 2: 0:40

Podcast for your career and your life, no matter what business you're in. Hello and welcome to the Northern Power Women Podcast. My name is Simone and you are most welcome at this week's episode, and we are in our winners episode at the moment our whole series where I get the chance to speak to some of those amazing, inspirational, remarkable individuals who use their power for good with the aim of reaching this more equal and diverse and inclusive world that we are all striving for. And this week I am chatting to the famous Isabel Panton, who won the Northern Power Women Judges Special Award for Leveling Up Leader at this year's Northern Powering Awards. Izzy, you just get on LinkedIn. You can find all that about. I don't think I could describe it. We're going to get into it in a minute but Izzy, amongst other things, is the Director of Student Recruitment and International at University Academy 92. Izzy or Isabel, what's your preference?

Speaker 1: 1:34

Izzy Isabel, when I'm in trouble. So today hopefully, Izzy.

Speaker 2: 1:39

Okay, well, we'll start with Izzy and we'll see if Izabel has to come into play. Welcome, so much to the podcast, and it was so amazing to see you up on that stage last year getting that special award from the judges, because it was something for those of you who have been judges know out there what a kind of a minefield it is when we're kind of going through all of these different things. But it is always up to the judge to say you know what actually we want to recognise and that was something our judges were adamant, that they wanted to shine a light on you and the amazing work that you've been doing around leveling up. So congratulations, thank you, I still.

Speaker 1: 2:17

it's like pride and joy in my lounge, like still one of my proudest moments. So it's going to take a lot to beat that over the next few years.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Oh, now tell me about the role, tell me about UA 92. U92 is an organisation that I'm really, really passionate about, but tell us, tell us about UA 92 and about your role, specifically because this is an organisation and institution that's really developed and grown.

Speaker 1: 2:39

So University Academy 92 was co-founded by Lancaster University, the class of 92, which people will see as like a really unique partnership that they've probably never heard up before, and the intention was to create a really deliberately different, disruptive approach to higher education. That meant that people's post codes are upbringing wasn't a limiting factor to them progressing and getting a university degree. So Lancaster University award our degrees and the cost of 92 are our co founders and help drive the ethos, the values, the mission and the vision of the institution and we deliver courses across undergraduate degrees in business, sports, media and digital, in the apprenticeship space and digital again, and also boot camps and short courses too. So we've got a wide range of portfolio.

Speaker 1: 3:25

My role, which is I absolutely love and I was just thinking today it's my three year anniversary this week and I've still not had somebody's scary as well. Not one bit of wounded red I've ever had in this role, which is a privilege my role is director of student recruitment. So domestically and internationally, I'm responsible for recruiting students onto those courses I just mentioned. I do that in a multiple, multiple ways via our traditional student recruitment team in schools and colleges and via our nationally unique community engagement team and youth zones, mosques, boxing clubs, the church, the barbershop, the chicken shop, you name it wherever the young people are. That's where we're interfacing with them. So it's a really rewarding job. It's a really rewarding mission. It's cliche, but I say that I've managed to make giving back my day job and found something where I can apply some of my commercial skillset to something that I think is like really rewarding. To Manchester, I absolutely love it?

Speaker 2: 4:20

Well, clearly you do. I'm really proud that we've done quite a bit with UA92, with our power-up speed mentoring. That we did. We did a session over the summer. We did a session where we had quite a few of the boot camp came out to an event we did at Barclays Tech Campus the other week. So for us it's a joy to work with you guys. I'm already thinking you took this role because it was about broadening the wider to enhance the already existing skillset that you had. Am I right in thinking that or did I dream that it was a?

Speaker 1: 4:49

bit of both. So I'm really passionate about the notion that we will all have multi-hyphen careers now. It's very rare that we're staying one industry or in one company for our entire trajectory and I wanted something where I could apply like my sales skills and a gift of the gab to something that was not just about profit, not just about you know the bottom line, and more centered around impact and influencing Greater Manchester, a city that I am so proud to be a part of Berry Girl Born and Bread. So it was a challenge in that I've never, ever, had any exposure to higher education before. It's a very complex industry. It's a thought industry, a knowledge industry. So it was a challenge in that regard. But a lot of it is just building on the creativity and the commerciality that I've sort of demonstrated throughout my career so far. And that gift of the gab I love that phrase. It's always got a lot of supportation there, isn't it? But I quite like the gift of the gab. Look, we both got it.

Speaker 2: 5:40

We're doing all right, Absolutely, Absolutely. So how did you? Because you sort of transitioned through the ranks as well, didn't you? So how was that to sort of go, you were, you know, a director now amazing. And how was that transition from you to go from sort of team member to a lead yourself?

Speaker 1: 5:56

Yeah, I think after credit the board, particularly Marnie Millard, our chair of the board, who at the time sort of took an interim CEO position you know Marnie well and sort of taking a chance on someone like me, because I suppose in the interview process on paper you know I wasn't that typical hire. I broke that mould because most people in higher education have had that exposure in higher education before. So I was grateful for the risk they took and I was determined to make good on that and so I joined as head of student recruitment and admissions three years ago. This week and about 18 months in, I was promoted to director of student recruitment and international.

Speaker 1: 6:33

That level up has been important for me in that it's required me to I hate the word mature, but it's required me to sort of elevate my style of leadership, elevate the ways in which I delegate work and the things that I keep protective of.

Speaker 1: 6:48

So maybe in my role as head of I would do too much operationally and I needed to understand how. This was a step change so that my role was more strategic and less about the day to day delivery. It's been a massive learning curve for me because I really like to get involved. I just love to be involved in like every single bit, but I talk about it as removing myself from the day to day thinking in black and white into a space where I can think in colour and be creative and look objectively at the business whilst working on the business. So it's been a learning curve and I'm still trying to master it, but I've got a great team team working with me now and a great management team underneath me who you know have really come into the room. They've all got different experiences and different, different qualities.

Speaker 2: 7:34

It makes us a great team and you talked about Marnie. Dr Marnie Millard OBE, no less. You know she's been a big fan of Marnie. You know has been a massive supporter of everything we've done over the years. So when you talk about leadership, what do you think a great leader should look like and what other qualities that leader should have?

Speaker 1: 7:58

Did a LinkedIn post just recently about that, because I think what we do is as leaders and as industry leaders. We sometimes overcomplicate the notion of leadership and it becomes quite off putting to the young people who who perceive themselves as great future leaders, because they think, oh my goodness, there's so much to it. And I decided that if he was to really simplify leadership to his bare bones, it was the ability to to be sound, be good, be approachable, be, be friendly and be organised. So the ability to organise others, the ability to organise yourself, to organise your thoughts, to organise your organisation those are the two core fundamentals of leadership. Everything that's laid on top of that, whether that's a knowledge, technical knowledge in an area, or, or, or the ability to have difficult conversations you know those are all incredibly important facets, but the two fundamentals for me are the ability to be a good, sound person and to be organised, in that everything else I really believe can can be learnt and delivered and and supported on.

Speaker 2: 9:01

That's interesting because you talk a lot about you know, we talk about a lot about leadership and we talk about empathy, vulnerability, curiosity, listening, but organised. That's something I don't think I've really heard at the front of that. So that's, that's massive that you should say that.

Speaker 1: 9:15

Do you know why? Because you can. You can be the most inspiring voice in the room into as a leader. But if you can't, if you can't help your team execute your, your inspiration, you thought provocation, then what's the point? You, just you're a leader without direction, and leaders have to have direction. So maybe the worst direction, as opposed to organisation, but for me it's the ability to, to pull the moving pieces together, to, to push on.

Speaker 2: 9:39

You talk about yourself as being a cultural super connector. Now, that feels like it's in a crest. It's got a cape. I feel like it's a. It's superhero qualities, isn't it? But talk to me about the your cultural super connector skills, do you?

Speaker 1: 9:55

know what it was. I've always undervalued myself as like a sales girl. There's nothing wrong with that. Our sales and industry is a huge stigma attached to it and it's something that's incredibly important. It makes the world go around. But I've always devalued my actual contribution to to my sales on a commercial, commercial skills, and what I've realized is it's a lot more than that.

Speaker 1: 10:14

I used to say to my friends and I still do it what am I good at? Tell me what I would like. Help me understand what I'm good at. And I think you know being good at conversation or being good at connecting people, as you are. You know knowing how to introduce people to networks, like that's never had a term attached to it, but that's essentially what I'm doing in my role. Whether it's, you know, a young Bain community from Mosside or the C suite from one of the big four accountancy firms, I'm able to connect those dots all the time. So I decided that I needed to embody something that was more heroic, more more impressive, as opposed to just seeing it as this lower level role. So cultural super connector came about in a way that would help me articulate and coin all the little bits and pieces that I do for for a living on the weekend, on an evening. So yeah, I don't know if that's appropriate. People keep asking me about it, so it must be working.

Speaker 2: 11:05

No, I love it. Do you know what? When I first set up my business pre northern power and if you like, my business card just simply said connector, collaborator, curator. That's, that's what it said. I'm complicated.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Yeah, but it's that whole.

Speaker 2: 11:18

There's something in that you know why, why set, why have all manner of different titles when actually this really explains what you do. You know whether you're, like you say, hanging around a chicken shop, which you know, talking about your way 92, or whether you're talking, you know, you know on one of your platforms about the great work that you do, and I know role models is really important to you, as it is to us. I feel like role models and mentoring and support and sponsorship is all in our DNA, and you post regularly on LinkedIn. Love following your journey, your stories. I think you're very, very authentic and honest out there, but tell, talk to me about role models and why they're so powerful.

Speaker 1: 11:56

I think role models are so powerful? Because, if you look at change, everybody sees global change as something that's unobtainable unless you work for, like the UN, or in policy. We perceive that as being really out of reach, and so a lot of people just give up in trying to make a difference because they feel as though there's too much stuff to change. And look at the news today, you know I feel I feel like I could be making a bigger impact all the time, but instead of focus on how I could influence as a role model myself because that's a local change that has global impacts.

Speaker 1: 12:27

And what more? People need to realize that we all have the ability and the capacity to be role models, whether it's in our industry, in our community, in the school that we used to go to, in our, you know, the our cousins friendship group. It doesn't matter where it is, but we all have the ability, I think, and the responsibility to be a role model. And the way I see myself as one is that I'm role modeling to young people what you can achieve when you look and you sound like me, but at the same time, I'm role modeling to organizations what they can achieve if they take a risk on someone that looks and sounds like me. So for me, I think, being a role model is twofold I want to inspire the next generation, but I also want to to book the status quo all the time and demonstrate what can happen if you take a risk on diverse talent which you know, as, again, you and I too did for me.

Speaker 2: 13:15

And so how do you convince Because this is something I've talked about for years when you know, when I've either spoken to you know sort of young you know young professionals or speaking to you know different, irrespective of a speaking event recently and now I ask the question how many of you think you're role models? You know, in a room of 40, one hand you know and I can have that. Ask that same question whether it be a room of younger people or more professional people. There's still that reluctance. How do you convince somebody you know I'm with you Is he like everyone needs to take the responsibility as a role model? Seriously, everyone is a role model to someone, but how do you encourage that person to step into that role model list, if that's?

Speaker 1: 13:55

a word. I think it's three things. I think it's confidence, culture and community. So, first, I think there's a confidence crisis. I think it's across everyone and I think you have to enable people to have the confidence to find what their strengths are. So what are your strengths? How can you role model based on what you know? Most people don't realise what they know until you ask them questions like that you're doing. That it makes them realise what they're actually good at. So there's a confidence piece, I think, with role modelling, that we have to unlock.

Speaker 1: 14:22

The second is culture. So recognising, you know how you can influence culturally the cultures that you're interested in cultures such a broad term is bounded around so frequently, but what culture do you identify with and who within that culture can you influence? So knowing your audience as a role model is really important, because you can't. You know I might not be able to be a role model to you, and I'm okay with that, but can I be a role model to some of the northern power women that come through your organization? Yeah, so, picking your battles to an extent, knowing your culture, knowing your boundaries and, lastly, communities. So we're all part of a community and I think there's a loneliness pandemic as well as a confidence crisis.

Speaker 1: 15:04

But a lot of us don't understand what communities we're a part of. So, a very trivial level, my, the street that I live on, we have a great chat. That's my, that's my community, my neighbours at my community. On a bigger level, my colleagues and the young people we interface with every day them, they're my community. I also have an online community. I have online team. I also have a very small private Instagram account with, like my close friends. So recognizing where we're interfacing with people that we can role model to and be inspired by is really important. So I think it's helping people unlock those three things which everyone has within them and not over complicating it and I know I might have just done that with my answer, but being a role model is literally me and you go for a cup of tea and me asking you how you got to where you have today with your business, and you give them the time of day. That's the top and bottom of it. It's not an all one thing.

Speaker 2: 15:56

Yeah, time isn't it. I always think time is one of the most precious gifts that we can give and we can gain. So who are your role models, or who've been your role models?

Speaker 1: 16:05

So many and I really don't like to blow smoke because I'm not a big football fan, but Gary Neville, for me over the last three years so he's one of our co founders has really role model, what it is to be.

Speaker 1: 16:17

What I said to you earlier about being sound and being sort of organized and disciplined so disciplined, so people will never understand the level of understanding he has across his entire businesses. People might perceive him to have, you know, an advisor each business and I guess he does but he knows it in and out of his business. He knows his team's cultures. He knows his, his, his staff. He greets everyone the same way. He makes time for everyone and so he him, him for me is someone that is incredibly busy but still makes people feel like they're incredibly important and that's a real. That's been a big role model in my in my last three years because of who I want to, who I want to epitomize and how I want to articulate myself. I want to articulate myself as as he does. So I'd say at the moment he's probably one of my biggest role models, but I'd never admit that to him face to face.

Speaker 2: 17:06

It's all right. This is a private, private podcast. You know he won't listen, I'm sure. Oh, I'm sorry, is he? Honestly, it's amazing talking to you. You know this. You know this cultural super connector. What is next for you? You know, I love this whole community building. I love the way you've broken it down. You know your private Instagram, but what's next for you in your cultural super connector journey? I?

Speaker 1: 17:27

think doing more of the same. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself as a sort of high performance, anxiety, anxiety ridden gal to be like what's next, what's next, but more of the same. And repetition and perfecting what I'm good at, I think is my focus for the next 12 months in terms of continuing my speaking engagements, continuing my panel hosted. I absolutely love doing those things. It's I don't know about you, but it gives me a dreadling rush that I can't get out of anything else. So, continuing the exposure that I need by my personal brand, sort of in the thought leadership space around leadership and diversity, I really want to cement myself as someone that's not just commenting on it in the moment. That comes synonymous with those subject areas. So that's it for me. Growing the team, growing the university We've just opened our second campus at the business school in Greater Manchester, manchester City Centre, sorry, so it's all growth. I'm tired of just thinking about it.

Speaker 2: 18:21

But it's amazing. I want you know I mean kind of just total respect to you you know what you're trying to do and achieve and what you are doing and achieving, shall I say you know you really are levelling up. You are. It's not just a phrase for the media, is it? You're levelling up across all of the different areas, is he? That's why you won the award.

Speaker 2: 18:39

I'm so glad that you gave us the time today to share. Keep being awesome. We didn't have to. You know, you've not intro bald, you've not been Isabelle, still is he. But thank you, I'm not some model yet.

Speaker 2: 18:50

Listen, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you take the time. I love it when we can open the lid on these fantastic role models, and role models are for sure within your DNA cultural super connect, is he? Thank you so much and thank you to all of you for listening. Thank you for joining us every week on these weekly episodes. Please do subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and drop us an old school email if you fancy podcast at northernpowerwomencom. Join us on all our socials North Power Women on Twitter or X and Northern Power Women all the rest, as we uncover the stories behind all of our Northern Power Women role models and advocates. Remember, it's not just for one night. If you'd like to sort of join with us, please stay connected on our power platform, our digital hub. We are powernet. My name is Simone. This is the Northern Power Women podcast and what goes on? Media production.