Advanced has been proud to be a patron of The Prince’s Trust for many years. When Anwen Robinson joined us last year, she already had a strong relationship with the Trust, and was ready to help us make a difference for disadvantaged young people across the UK. We spoke to Anwen to learn more about her work with this amazing charity and the life-changing work achieved by The Trust.
Could you tell us more about The Prince’s Trust, and what its mission is?
The Prince's Trust was founded by the king – Prince Charles, as he was at the time. When he retired from the armed services in 1976, he wanted to continue providing a service. So, he chose to support disadvantaged youth, a cause close to his heart. Since then, The Trust has helped over a million young people in many different ways, supporting them to turn their lives around.
These are young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds who haven't had the best start in life. The Trust provides financial assistance if needed, but most importantly also provides support in the form of skills training, mentoring, and opening doors to lots of personal development and work opportunities for young people. It's a fantastic cause.
How did you get involved with the Prince's Trust?
I first got involved with the Trust in 2009, when I became managing director of the unit for business software at a company at that time. When I became managing director, they were undergoing a huge five-year transformation program that impacted every part of the business. Key to success was building a strong collaborative team spirit and The Trust proved instrumental in bonding everyone around a common cause. The different activities we engaged in served to rally the staff around something that they could really believe in and want to engage in. Consequently, this helped to improve cross-team networking and communication and also introduced much needed fun across the organisation as we embarked upon different fund raising challenges.
When I joined Advanced, it was fantastic to see that we were already a patron of The Prince’s Trust. Through my involvement with the Trust whilst at different companies over the years, I was asked to become a member of The Trust’s Technology Leadership Group alongside representatives from companies such as Google, AWS, Oracle and SAP.
Could you expand a little bit more on Technology Leadership Group?
The Trust formed a number of industry groups to represent the diverse range of opportunities available to young people from across different industries. In this vein, technology companies grouped together so that we could provide focused support around the growing importance of technology across all aspects of work and life in general. Within our group, we focus on digital skills gaps, upskilling challenges and experiences.
The Leadership Groups all have senior executive representatives from some of the top companies in the UK. This also means it's a fantastic way for us to network and collaborate not just within our own group, but across all the groups.
And they're also hugely competitive. A key focus for all of the Groups is on raising money to support The Trust’s activities. Over the course of the year there's lots of activities to get involved with and all of the groups compete to raise the most money.
How do you feel Advanced’s values align with the Trust?
Our Values align well – we have a good fit, especially in terms of being Connected – one of our four core values. Being well connected both internally and externally to effect positive change is very much what we do. And it's very much what the Trust do as well. So, it's a natural synergy.
We’d like to thank Anwen for sharing her thoughts with us, and we’d like to congratulate her for all the amazing work she does to aid such an impactful charity. Learn more about our work with The Prince’s Trust and how you can support their amazing work here. You can find out more about the passionate charity work of another of our amazing people in conversation with Tashan Everret.
