BIFA Awards
Helping to bridge the gap Kyle Lawrence, who reached the BIFA Apprentice of the Year fi nals a few years ago, was shortlisted for the Young Freight Forwarder of the Year 2022 . He became an ocean supervisor at OIA Global in 2022 – a step on the way to his leadership ambitions
Young Freight Forwarder Award
Virgin Atlantic Cargo is proud to sponsor BIFA’s Young Freight
came into being 12-18 months after I joined the industry, so initially I learnt from people a couple of generations older than me. They always gave great advice, but it was not as relatable as what we are now doing with the YFN: we are bridging the gap. “I want young people to know about freight forwarding and see it as a career path. I am a product of the industry, in terms of the opportunities that are available, and what can happen when you throw yourself in at the deep-end and see how far you can go,” Kyle concluded. Forwarder Award to recognise and encourage the next generation of industry leaders. As well as rewarding the progress of the best young people, this award helps to highlight the vital role freight forwarders play in the growth and development of the industry. VAC recognises the importance of developing and retaining talented young people and is confident this award will help to attract more recruits that want to build a future career in a sector that is so important to the economy and international trade.
“O cean supervisor is my fi rst leadership role,” said Kyle Lawrence. “Right away, I started onboarding a new team member who had no freight forwarding experience. The person I trained was quite independent within a couple of months.” Kyle has always seen himself as a leader, even on the football pitch, and wants to develop his leadership qualities further through training. Meanwhile, he is gaining experience that will enable him to push on to higher roles, where he would manage larger groups of people and have more responsibility. Having entered the freight industry in his late teens, with very little knowledge of what the business involves, Kyle had no expectations – but from the outset,
“ I want young people to know about freight forwarding and see it as a career path.
he was excited to learn. “I was like a sponge,” he said, and he wants to pass that enthusiasm on to other young people. He highlighted the importance of BIFA’s Young Forwarder Network (YFN) in this regard, observing: “The YFN only
The power of self-belief
APPRENTICE OF THE YEAR AWARD
Seetec Outsource Training & Skills is a leading provider of innovative training,
Smart, educated and con fi dent, Cameron Smith made an excellent impression at Ligentia. He has gone from strength to strength and made it to the fi nals of BIFA’s Apprentice of the Year Award 2022
operator, having started with ocean freight and expanded into road and air. Cameron hopes to become more involved with the commercial side of the business and is keen to work at other locations across Ligentia’s global network to broaden his knowledge of the industry. “My medium-term aspiration is to move into a supervisor or branch manager role, with even the potential of being a director,” he added. education and recruitment. Seetec Outsource has delivered thousands of successful programmes to a range of small and large organisations nationwide and helped many people into employment. Seetec Outsource provides apprenticeships and traineeships on a range of subjects at various levels.
Cameron Smith has been busy since joining Ligentia as an import customer service manager apprentice in May 2021. Besides carrying out his daily tasks in that role, he completed his apprenticeship by October 2022. “The most important thing the apprenticeship taught me was self- confidence: the belief that I had the skills needed for my day-to-day role,” he said. “It allows you to get fundamental skills in place and then expand them while doing the job.” Cameron was also selected for Ligentia’s emerging talent programme, which saw him and other rising stars
spend a week in the Lake District last year with senior members of the business. “The insights into
their careers were a real eye-opener to the fact that if you keep applying yourself, you could be in a similar role one day,” he said. His own development has so far gone according to plan: he is now a multimodal
18 | July 2023
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