As part of our ‘Getting to Know’ series of blog posts, we’re talking to central members of the LEO Learning family so you can get to know them a bit better. Today we’re talking to Jamie Merriman, Programme Manager at LEO Learning.
Describe your role at LEO Learning.
As a Senior Account Director at LEO Learning, my role spreads across a few different areas, all of which I enjoy.
Firstly, I support our current clients with their strategic learning needs. This means that I am always with them and talking them about their immediate and long-term learning challenges and visions. This can take the form of something ‘traditional’ like elearning modules, or more often than not a blended learning programme that leverages technology in increasingly interesting ways. I work in a small team of 15 that supports me and our clients in these conversations. Our approach is what I call the ‘blank piece of paper approach’ – let’s forget about the technology for now and focus on your organisation, your sector, your business objectives and your people. We know the technology exists either in-house or somewhere else, so let’s not worry about that just yet.
I then support the solutions design with our amazing team of learning leaders and technology experts to formulate a number of possible options, playing these back to our clients, iterating and then supporting them in making decisions.
We then move on to contracting, which I drive with the client and LEO Learning teams, and then, hopefully, project initiation!
The second part of my role is to align LEO Learning and the clients at project start and remain fully involved throughout, managing the project management effort with my manager Martin Stanton and representing our clients’ interests here at LEO Learning at all times, through to the measurement and lessons learned activities.
Which part of working at LEO Learning do you love most?
It’s a cliché but it is definitely the people. There’s serious talent, open-mindedness, ambition and endless accountability in every single one of them.
What is your proudest accomplishment?
At work it has to be working with a Swedish client to design, develop and deploy a groundbreaking sustainability programme – in 36 languages!
In a non-work context, it has to be me and my now wife moving to Australia in our early 20s with just £500 in our pocket and making a life for ourselves. We moved back to England 11 years later with a baby girl, a few more quid and the knowledge that we could do anything we wanted.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome?
Probably building the Lego Star Wars Super Star Destroyer. At 3,152 pieces, that wasn’t the challenge. The challenge was the thing is symmetrical so the build was very repetitive. It looks great though!
What are the three things you can’t work without?
1) Being in the office with the LEO Learning teams. I can’t imagine working at home.
2) A calculator
3) My mobile phone
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Like most lads, a footballer. I was okay at it but not great, so that didn’t last too long. Then it was a chef. My dad talked me out of it because of the anti-social hours. But I could have been that rich chef called ‘Jamie’!
Now that you’ve gotten to know Jamie Merriman better, we’d love to get to know you too. Contact us today to find out how LEO Learning can help you address the challenges in your company.