Inspire and Guide - Katie Benbow

After leaving the Stephen Perse Foundation Katie went on to study Drama & Spanish at Bristol University graduating with First Class Honours. Katie is currently the Strategy Lead for BBC Studios Productions - Factual. Where she leads strategic initiatives for the factual content production division at BBC Studios, which includes the world-renowned genre departments: the Natural History Unit, the Science Unit and the Documentary Unit. Her role involves working on anything from customer partnerships to brand strategy to organisational design, all led by the creative ambitions of the genre units requiring both strong editorial and commercial skills.

Katie explained her own experiences in applying to university, and how although she was not initially successful in her application she reflected upon what she thought was missing from her application.  This resulted in taking a year out to travel, using this experience to add depth to her application, and demonstrating her passion for why she wanted to undertake the degree course, and was ultimately successful in her application.

Using football as a means to explain business strategy, Katie connected with the students and undertook a fantastic job of demonstrating how a career path is more akin to stepping stones across a pond opposed to a ladder.  This message was well received by the students as evident by the questions posed at the end of the talk and the volume of the thanks provided by the students.