It’s beginning to look a lot like… the end of an amazing / challenging / exhausting / exhilarating / incredible year! Take your pick, all and any of those words sum up the last 12 months for me and so much more.
As our team of wonderful Vesties heads into a very well deserved period of rest, relaxation, celebration and family time, I’ve taken a momentary pause ahead of that time to take stock.
What a year! Starting with that long, dark, lockdown – the best decision we made as a leadership team at that point was to bring in the incredible Simon Scott. A performance coach who on other days is helping the champs at British Rugby and Rowing, Simon doubled down with us to take the team on their high performance SHED journey. Building resilience, comradery, and a safe space for them to learn 121, as well as bringing us together as a team. And we’re looking forward to working with him again in 2022 as we apply his BOSS and TCP strategies to help us conquer the world!
That world conquering journey wouldn’t be possible without our amazing client partners. We’ve been incredibly blessed to welcome new organisations to the Vested fold this year alongside our long-term favourites. From MSCI, to CFA UK, EdenTree, Elliptic and Bluestone Mortgages, they are all very different businesses with very different briefs – but with one thing in common: a desire to drive change, do more, and do better. They, as with our longer standing clients, are led by brave spirits, those who are embracing change and helping us collectively to do our best (and more!). To every one of you, a very big thank you.
But my biggest thanks and gratitude as ever, goes to our wonderful team. They blow me away every day with their smarts, creativity, zest for best and more. Despite our limited time together in person, we’ve embraced the London spirit – from Dodgems at Somerset House to a Sherlock Holmes trail around the streets of West London, we’ve been out and about, connecting and enjoying our time together to ensure that fun balances all the hard work. They are truly Vested in every way and I’m so glad they have the time to Get Rested over the coming week.
So as I reflect, beyond my infinite gratitude to everyone who helps make this business work every day, what have I learnt this year? Well…
I’ve learnt that I am so lucky because despite the many challenges the pandemic has brought, I continue to love my job and be just so proud every day of how our Vested vision is coming to life. I’ve learnt that I use Slack too much (a dubious honour of being in the top 10 Slack-ers across our international team, which I blame on being too old and having a typewriter mentality to messaging). I’ve learnt that I can never get it all right and fix everything, but that that is okay (although I’m still working on the latter bit!).
But most of all, I’ve learnt that I wouldn’t be here and making the success of this I am, without the wonderful Vested co-founders Dan, Binna and Ishviene and of course, the incredible Katie Spreadbury. They are by my side day in, day out: my cheerleaders, my challengers, my conscience, my coach, great friends and incredible people all in one. So to all of them, I give the biggest end of year thanks I can possibly muster.
And if you’ve taken the time to read this, I will thank you too – for taking the time and interest. And I wish you a very happy Christmas, a happy holidays, a happy break and a happy new year.
It’s a wrap… (and yes that festive pun was intentional).