my new year’s resolution? #bemoregiraffe

January 2021, Sophie Daud, CEO

Happy New Year to all of our Future Leaders Network members! We hope you’re all feeling rested and refreshed after the festive season, and ready to embrace 2021.

It’s natural at the start of a new year to reflect on the one that has just gone. And what a year it was. I won’t even try to make a comment about how the pandemic has affected our everyday lives - every individual’s situation is unique and it will have touched each of us in different ways. But at a time of great crisis, it’s important to remind ourselves of the great work that continues despite and throughout the pandemic - and, as 2020 drew to a close, we at FLN spent a bit of time doing just that.

Our community

2020 saw the launch of our popular Virtual Breakfast Clubs. Hundreds of you signed up (often within minutes of tickets going on sale) to participate in meaningful, early morning conversations with peers from all across the country. We discussed and debated the Green Recovery, the future of Big Tech, and the future of Space, and collectively we shared thoughts, ideas, visions, quotes and suggested reading. It has been a privilege and an honour to share that early Friday morning space with all of you who have attended, so thank you.

For those of you who found that mornings weren’t your best friend, our FLN Wales community hosted a range of Virtual Tea-Time’ events too. We’ve been delighted by the intimate and open conversations we’ve had with dozens of you on important issues such as the link between wellbeing and leadership, and how to grow your leadership network.Thank you to our fantastic FLN Wales members who have co-chaired or led those sessions - I hope it’s inspired all of us to find a bit more time for introspection.

We collaborated with Tortoise Media to offer our members free tickets to their NextGen series. These Digital Thinkins brought our members together with young leaders from across the world to engage in ‘a forum for civilised disagreement’. Our members heard from inspirational speakers, including former Minister Jo Johnson and former Cabinet Secretary Lord Bob Kerslake, and participated in a range of debates facilitated by Tortoise reporters and correspondents. 

We hosted a range of virtual events over the Summer to reflect on racial injustice, and I was proud to see young people from all backgrounds and ethnicities join us for these emotive, highly engaging discussions. These culminated in our Black History Month roundtable, where our fantastic panel of young black leaders spoke frankly, passionately and optimistically about the changes we need to see in the United Kingdom across education, employment and health.

Our leadership capacity building

We hosted our first ever Future Leaders Network Annual Conference, with hundreds of you joining us for a jam-packed, inspiration filled agenda. What I’m most proud of is that not only did we bring you amazing established leaders - from PayPal, the World Economic Forum and beyond - but we placed young leaders on the same stage as them. This is an important part of mainstreaming youth leadership - it should be the rule, not the exception! - and also encouraging real peer-to-peer learning. I hope you all also made excellent use of the networking function on HopIn (I personally found 2 minutes way too short given the amazing people I was speaking to!).

I have to take my hat off to Marcel Hedman, our fantastic Head of Business Development, and the amazing FLN Annual Conference team, for their hard work over several months to deliver an event which was inspiring, exciting and intellectually stimulating. Thank you so much, and we are super excited for our next Conference in 2021!

Our opportunities for young leaders

All of this alongside quite possibly the most extraordinary Y7 and Y20 (the official youth engagement groups of the G7 and G20) processes in history. 

For a start, due to political context, the U.S. G7 simply didn’t happen - not that that deterred our phenomenal Y7 delegates from successfully negotiating an incredible communique and working tirelessly with HM Government officials to encourage national and international activity to reflect youth priorities. 

For the first time in history, both the G7 and G20 Youth Summits took place virtually, and our fantastic Y7 and Y20 delegates had to respond in real-time to the Covid crisis, from adjusting to travel disruption (this year saw the first ever virtual Youth and Leaders Summits) to delivering impactful, action-focussed emergency statements on the situation as it unfolded. 

We’re immensely proud of everything our 2020 delegates have achieved, in spite of the huge uncertainty and unprecedented nature of their circumstances. I’d encourage all of you to read their final communiques, their Covid-19 statements, the Y7 Black Lives Matter statement and the Y7 Diary and Reflections. We are excited to see what each delegation and delegate brings forward in terms of their Post-Summit Initiatives as they embed themselves in the Future Leaders Network family.

Our planning

But 2020 wasn’t all about 2020. If you’ve been a member for a while, you’ll probably know that I’ve been looking forward to 2021 for a very, very long time! That meant that, even in January 2020 we were thinking ahead to the big milestone that 2021 is. 

Last summer, we selected our Y7 2021 Design Working Group who were tasked with proposing a set of recommendations on the suggested outcomes, outreach and design of the Y7 2021. The group kicked off with a social media takeover by their Group Coordinator, Lottie Myers, and over the course of the following 12 weeks, they spoke to previous delegates, consulted a wide range of young people and youth stakeholders across the U.K., and set about designing the Y7 2021.

I cannot thank this group enough for their commitment, enthusiasm and hard work on a challenging task. They persevered despite some difficult circumstances, and I’m pleased to say that every single one of their recommendations has been adopted, where possible. In line with our FLN Vision, Mission and Values, we are proud that this activity has been youth-led and involving young people from all four nations of the United Kingdom.

Our biggest year yet

So - what to expect for our ‘biggest year yet’? In 2021, the U.K. hosts the G7 Presidency, and we at the Future Leaders Network will host the Y7 Summit. This is a huge opportunity - both for us, as a Network, to deliver an incredible summit based on our unique expertise into the Youth Summits, but also as U.K. youth, to ensure that at this critical juncture in our history, young people’s voices are being heard at the highest levels of decision making.

We’ll be unveiling our plans in their entirety over the next few weeks, but already I can promise you this - there will be countless opportunities for you to get involved in this historic Summit. You - young leaders, across the country, tackling everything from climate change to health inequalities - are going to be at the forefront of our activity.

And best of all, it’s being led by youth. Today, we announced our Implementation Taskforce members, who just this week we inducted and who have already hit the ground running. Some of you may have already met our two Co-Chairs, Anna Harris (Y7 delegate in 2019) and Megan Doherty (a member of the Design Working Group), as we introduced them on social media a few weeks ago - but if you missed that, don’t worry, as we’ll have a blog from them next week.

By the end of January, we’ll be able to introduce you to your Y7 and Y20 Delegates 2021. In response to the incredible success of our events with former Prime Minister, Rt Hon Theresa May MP, and our roundtable featuring former Foreign Secretary David Miliband and former G8/G20 Sherpa, Sir Jon Cunliffe, this year we’ve had a record breaking 236 applications for just seven spots! The standard this year has been unbelievably high, and all applicants should be incredibly proud of their achievements. Every single one of you will receive written feedback from us, whether you were successful or not. We’re beavering away at the moment to assess all candidates fairly and impartially, with the first round of interviews taking place last weekend and the final round to take place at the end of this week. We’ll be aiming to announce our delegates to you over the next few weeks.

But the road is far from over with regards to the Y7 2021. Today we opened applications to take part in the Y7 2021 Youth Forum - an opportunity for young people with lived experience of the policy tracks to take part in both the consultations, negotiations and Summit of the Y7 2021. This is a major step forward in our commitment to deliver the most inclusive, impactful and developmental Y7 Summit in history. If you have personal experience of climate change or environmental destruction; of the impact of digital and technological transformation; of the challenging labour market and educational context; or of health conditions, please get involved!

My personal New Year’s Resolution

I’m going to begin with where I started. Why is my New Year’s Resolution to #BeMoreGiraffe?

I had the absolute privilege of joining the FLN Academy session at our Annual Conference last year on Communicating with Authority. The incredible Elliot Kay talked about how, to communicate with impact, you have to be willing to stick your head above the parapet. In other words, if you want to change the world, you’ve got to #BeMoreGiraffe.

Having reflected on that over Christmas, that’s precisely why I’m writing these words today. I have the incredible honour of serving you, our FLN members, as CEO. But often, you don’t see or hear from me unless we have a conference or are featured in the media. That’s a sad outcome for me - you, our members, are why I first got involved in FLN. But it’s also a sad outcome for you, because you don’t get a chance to see ‘behind the scenes’, to see the work that we are doing and - more importantly - tell us how you want us to do it differently or better.

So, at our Planning meeting last week, the FLN SLT and I all made a commitment. We will #BeMoreGiraffe. We will write monthly blogs to you about what we’re up to, the challenges we’re facing and how we’re going about solving them. We’re going to stick our head above the parapet and be as transparent as possible with you about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how you can get involved or offer feedback. And this shift is all the more important this year, when we’re undertaking such a massive privilege and responsibility in delivering the Y7 2021.

My closing question to you is - how are you going to #BeMoreGiraffe this year? What are you going to do differently that you think has a positive impact in the world?

PS - If you’re struggling for ideas, I can highly recommend our upcoming FLN Academy Module with the fantastic Elliot Kay himself (who may or may not wear a giraffe onesie to illustrate his point..!) It’s a full day session taking place on Friday 22 January for just £15 (or free if you are unemployed). If you want to kickstart your leadership journey… join us!