Business Profile: Suzie Branch
As Birmingham Young Professional of the Year celebrates its 10th anniversary, we look back at some its previous winners. This week Melinda Sanchez spoke to 2009 winner Suzie Branch.
“I won’t be a minute,” boomed the voice of Suzie Branch from her private office at city centre marketing firm BHMG.
Twenty minutes later the BYPY 2009 winner and client services director emerges wearing a red and black panel mini dress and an apologetic, slightly harassed expression.
“I’m so sorry,” she gushed. “Shall we go through to my office for some afternoon tea?”
Visions of china cups, scones and clotted cream are quickly replaced by the reality that by afternoon tea she means the standard office cuppa.
But nonetheless, there is something a bit Malory Towers about Suzie, who has a delightfully plumy accent, rosy cheeks and who sits on a Ladies Circle.
It’s no surprise to learn that she attended Moreton Hall, an independent all girls’ boarding school in Shropshire, from the age of 10.
What is surprising to learn, given the total absence of regional dialect from her speech, is that Suzie’s family have lived and worked in Birmingham for more than 100 years.
“I was the first person in my family to go to boarding school and I loved every single minute of it,” she said.
“It was totally and utterly my decision. I loved all those boarding school books, St Claire’s, Malory Towers.
“I’ve always been quite determined and as there was a nine-year age difference between my brother and I, I wanted to be around people nearer to my own age.”
Suzie gives the impression that despite choosing to live away from home at such an early age, family is very important to her, so important that for the past two years she has been tracing her family tree.
“My parents were both born and bred in Birmingham,” she said with pride.
“My father runs his own business in Birmingham and has done since he was in his 20s.
“He grew up on Ryland Street in Ladywood and went to Moseley Grammar School.
“My mum grew up in Ladywood too. Her family used to live in the back-to-backs on Newhall Hill.
“The family roots in Birmingham go back to my great, great grandparents. I’ve discovered that my great grandfather fought with the Warwickshire Regiment in the First World War and died in battle. One family member even worked on the Birmingham Post as a printer.”
She paused and with an apologetic shrug, said: “I talk an awful lot so just stop me if you need to.”
Glancing over the top of her glasses and sipping her tea, she continued: “I’ve always found it ironic that having gone to boarding school and then Loughborough University, followed by a stint living in Paris, I ended up buying a property just off Five Ways, 100 metres away from where my parents were born, without even realising it.”
