Rising Stars in HR & Recruitment 2016

Winnie Oudemans is a HR Business Partner within the Operations and Technology HR Team. She joined Barclays in 2011 after graduating from the University of Manchester, initially within the Wealth and Investment Management Learning team and following that within the Organisational Insight team as a Portfolio Manager. Winnie is also a co-founder and UK Global Co-Chair of Emerge, an internal network for colleagues early in their career at Barclays. With a passion for Social Impact and Entrepreneurship, she is privileged to have represented Barclays at the One Young World Summit in Johannesburg in 2013 and Dublin in 2014.

I am an experienced Learning and Development professional and I have worked in Parliament for many years, in a range of different departments and roles. I have substantial experience of the varying requirements of different business areas, their preferred learning approaches and how to manage specific development needs.

I am also chair of Parliagender (Parliament’s Workplace Equality Network  for Gender Equality)   and this has enabled me to develop excellent working relationships with House of Lords and external organisations in the delivery of the Parliagender strategy.

I have deputised for the current Head of Learning, attending leadership meetings and representing the work and achievements of the team. I recently gained a Postgraduate qualification in Career and Talent Management and I have led the Career Coaching team in Parliament and developed this service from a small group to a team of over 20 qualified career coaches. This team actively support staff development and coaching at all levels in the organisation.

I have also led the development of an new external mentoring programme for women colleagues to develop leadership skills and their careers  in Parliament, a new initiative which I developed in partnership to enable this to be a key feature of our annual development offer. I am passionate about people developing their skills to meet their full potential, whatever their background or aspirations may be.

I’m the eldest of eight siblings, four sisters and three brothers. I started a degree in Actuarial Science but after year 1 a change in circumstances meant one of my sisters who was 14 needed to move in with me, so I secured a full time job with Santander to allow this to happen. After three years, once she had secured a position in a foundation course for a mental health nursing degree we moved to London and I started a brand new career with Progressive Recruitment, a trading division of SThree. In the last six years, I’ve been through the high and lows that recruitment offers, however have been given an amazing platform to champion come of the key beliefs I hold in life. Everyone deserves to be given an opportunity to reach their full potential, always give excellent customer service, create a diverse and inclusive work environment and this will lead to a creative, happy and retained work force. I have had some really good success which I am always thankful for, but truly believe it is my unwavering desire to assist my customers in making the right choices for their organisations or careers that has led me to this success.