22 January 2025

Join us as our Marketing Apprentice and monthly blogger, Zach, meets our new Interim CEO, Yultan, for an informal chat about all things Skills and Education Group and Further Education.

 

 

Zach: Hi, Yultan. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today. I’m looking forward to hearing about what drew you to this role, but I’m also really nervous. Sorry, I’m oversharing.

 

Yultan: I’m very open, too; I think it really helps, particularly when you’re part of the senior team in an organisation. I believe it makes people feel more connected to you and understand who you are—your personality and what drives you. Hopefully, it can also serve as motivation for others.

 

In my experience, sometimes people struggle to see the positives in situations, while there are always negatives, it’s crucial to focus on the positives because we all want to wake up ready for the day. You have to find the good in whatever is happening because that’s what motivates you to keep striving for improvement.

 

Zach: I like your outlook; it’s inspiring. Yesterday, I had my six-month probation review, and I was talking to my manager, Maya. I said, “I’m meeting the CEO tomorrow and am really anxious. I don’t know how it’s going to go.” But now, talking to you, I feel relaxed.

 

Yultan: That’s good because that’s how it should be. That’s why I moved into this office—because it has a window, and I always keep my door open unless I’m in a meeting. I have experienced senior leaders in organisations that keep their doors closed, and as a result they appear to be closed off. I think that drives a certain behaviour in other people, making them feel a bit afraid or unsure if they might say the wrong thing.  We are a people organisation and it should be about human connection. I just think that, at the end of the day, we’re all humans. It doesn’t matter what the status is; we’re all human.

 

Zach: I think that’s good for people, being able to see you. It helps break down class divides and makes everyone feel a bit more comfortable. You’ve spoken about your personality, and your positivity. Is there anything else you’d like to add about yourself as a person?


Yultan: I’ve worked in further education my whole career.  Initially I was a marketing secretary. That’s how I started. My educational background is in business and marketing, so marketing was the field I wanted to pursue. When I started at South Nottingham College (which is now Nottingham College), my job was in marketing. I’d go out to events, talk to all the teams, and help put the prospectus together. It was a nice job because you were central to the organisation, which meant you got to meet everyone. I liked that because I’m a people person.

 

I had been to college and university myself, but I don’t think I fully understood what it meant to work in further education until I was doing it. At first, it was the marketing side that attracted me, but very quickly, I moved into other areas of the college. Early in my career, I realised I wanted to stay in further education because I could see what it did for people who might not have otherwise had the opportunity. I went to sixth form and did alright in school. I didn’t do very well in my A-levels, but I did enough to go to university. But when I was working in a general FE college, I realised that there were a lot of people who might have struggled at school, and for them, this was an opportunity to get back into education. I saw that, in the space of a couple of years, they could positively change their lives.


Skills and Education Group is fundamentally about people,
and the further education aspect keeps drawing me back. Even though I’m not in a direct delivery role, I now lead an organisation that recognises student achievements. We support people in improving their lives through education, which is incredibly important.


Zach: It’s great that you’re working for a charity, especially as it’s people who motivate you. I agree with that because, coming here, I’ve had access to FE, and I can move on to higher levels. It’s nice that there are so many new opportunities now; for example, I love the fact that we offer access diplomas.


Yultan: Access was my involvement with Skills and Education Group as a Trustee. I was the Chair of the Access to HE Board. That was really what drew me in because, in my last role (before I retired!) I was the principal of Northern College, an adult residential college in Barnsley. The college was there for people who had faced significant challenges in their lives, such as drugs, alcohol, mental health issues really big life issues. The purpose of the college was to give people an opportunity to turn things around.


Some people come in with no qualifications at all, just focusing on things like confidence building, learning to work in a team, or other preparatory activities that could help them eventually get a job. But one of the things the college did was offer Access to HE, giving people the chance to change careers or pursue higher education. For
example,Access courses can help someone who has been a mum for 15 years, who may have begun a career before becoming a parent and now feels that they want to do something different for themselves instead of returning to their previous career.


It’s amazing when
you hear people’s life stories and how the Access qualification has helped them develop, change, and steer their lives in a new direction.

 

Zach: Yeah, I agree. I’d also love to know more about your new role, what does it entail?


Yultan: What am I here to do, overall? Since it’s an interim position, I would like to think
what I can do is work with the trustees, the senior team, and staff across the organisation to create some stability and help define the future direction. That way, when a permanent CEO comes into the role, they’ll have some guidance on what the future direction might look like. Given the recent changes, it’s about understanding what we want to be moving toward and supporting the organisation to reach a place where I can safely hand it over to someone who will be here for the long term. So, my role is to coordinate that process with everyone and ensure that we have a clear direction moving forward.


Zach: What do you love as a person? What drives you?


Yultan: When I was working in colleges, I really enjoyed recruiting new people, because I love building teams. I like
that each person brings something different. Together, you can find a way forward that’s better than what you can achieve on your own.


Zach: What do you love about being in a team? Is it the encouragement, the communication, or the drive you can give each other?


Yultan: It’s
sharing the passion. It’s that bit about being passionate—when you talk about a subject, it really makes a difference. It’s very easy, isn’t it, in a team, if something’s happened that’s not great, for everyone to get down and start feeling glum. But actually, it’s about coming back to the question, “Why are we here?” Let’s be passionate about why we’re here and find a way forward.


So, the
great thing about working in a team is being able to support each other to find positive ways forward.

 

Zach: I’m lucky with my team in that regard because most of us have positivity in our top five strengths, and it really works. A lot of us also have relationship-building strengths, so we work really well together in that sense. We always try to look on the bright side of things.


Yultan: I can immediately see that you all have positivity because you’re so welcoming and always bouncy, and that’s exactly what you want. It’s perfect for a marketing team as well.


Zach: I’ve kind of already covered a lot of this, since one of the main questions was about aspirations, and you’ve mentioned how you’re here to get things to that point. Is there anything else you’d like to add to that?

Yultan: For me, it’s about making sure that, as an organisation, we work closely with our members and partners and that we are firmly embedded in the world of further education. If we’re going to deliver, we need to do it in a high-quality way. If we commit to doing something, then we should do it—and do it well. So
, my ambition is to ensure that if we make a commitment, we follow through and do it excellently.


Zach: It’s good for the people as well. When they’ve got high quality service, it makes people trust you more.


Yultan: And it makes them come back, doesn’t it? They come back because they feel like it worked last time—it was good. Whereas, if you sell something that’s a little different from what you
actually deliver, they’ll think, “Actually, we’ll go somewhere else.”

Zach: We’ve already talked about your background. Is there anything else you’d like to add about that and what led you here?


Yultan: It’s
really useful to have worked my way up. My first role was called Marketing Secretary. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do—I was still young—but I started in a very junior position, which actually was great because it allowed me to learn about all the functions of the college and get to know the organisation. Then, I slowly moved into different roles. When I left Nottingham College, I was Vice Principal.


As Vice Principal, when people said they couldn’t do something, I could say, “Yeah, but actually, I used to work in that department, or in a similar role, and I know you can do it.” Having done a lot of the operational jobs before I was promoted to a higher-level position really helped me understand the organisation.


I guess that’s what I’d say about my career. What drove me here was my connection to the organisation. It wasn’t just the fact that I was a trustee at the time, but also being in this building, which I’ve always thought was
really quirky. I used to come here for CPD, and I think my long association with the organisation, my passion for further education and making a difference to people is what attracted me to this role.

 

Zach: It’s wonderful that you already had that connection. You understand what we do as an organisation, and knowing the people here truly makes a significant difference, as there’s already some trust established. I can’t wait to see what you will achieve with and for the Skills and Education Group, and I am excited to be part of this next chapter. Thank you; it has been an incredibly inspirational meeting.