Business Profile: Suzie Branch
Since moving back to Birmingham the 30-year-old’s career has flourished at an impressive rate. Aged just 25 she helped mastermind a management buyout of HMG, forming BHMG as it is known today.
“The opportunity arose and I remember calling my father and saying I didn’t know what to do because it was a big challenge that involved me putting my personal finances into the business. His response was that I had nothing to lose because I was young and if it didn’t work out then at least I had given it a shot.”
Suzie had started at HMG as a client services executive, quickly working her way up to a senior position before the buyout took place.
“I had always wanted to work in marketing,” she said.
“But after uni it wasn’t a case of just walking straight into my ideal job. I ended up spending the first year of my working life managing dustbin men for Kidderminster Council.
“I had a lot of interviews in London and I was offered a job there but I decided that I didn’t actually want to live there. I eventually got a job in a marketing team at a publishing company based in the Midlands.”
Suzie is undeniably persistent and her success has not been the result of a run of good luck. She failed her driving test five times before she finally passed it and she won BYPY having failed to even make the short list of finalists four years previously.
“When I have been knocked back, I get over it and I keep going,” she said.
“I may not always get there the first time but I believe everything is achievable.
“If I have a set goal and I don’t get there on my first attempt then I’ll try to get there different ways until I manage it.
“When my staff suggested I enter BYPY last year I didn’t jump at the chance, not because I had been knocked back previously but because I didn’t think there was anything terribly exciting about me. In the end I felt I owed it to them to at least give it a go.”
During her year as BYPY, Suzie has become a regular speaker, volunteer and unofficial role model on the Birmingham business scene.
She has also kept up her existing commitments to Elmhurst School for Dance in Edgbaston, which she helps with fundraising activities, and she is a mentor to girls in the Young Enterprise programme at her old school.
“My motivation is to give something back, particularly as given my background with boarding school I have been really fortunate,” she said.
“I’m really lucky and I’m aware that not everybody is so lucky.
“Most of the things I do are linked to children and education.
“I can’t describe the pure enjoyment I get from doing it. From a totally selfish point of view, just watching the children with the smiles on their faces is sublime.
“But I do think that if you take on a voluntary role it’s really important that you take on 100 per cent of it.
“There are lots of people who would love to be in your position and aren’t. It really doesn’t take up much time as long as you’re organised.”
Making time in an already packed schedule is clearly one of Suzie’s strengths and with the interview over the whirlwind resumes, phones ringing, printers whirring and staff warning her of fast approaching deadlines.
