Adam Stead

Said the following about Young Rail Professionals:

“Young Rail Professionals celebrated its 5th Anniversary of its Inaugural Dinner in March 2015.

Having formed as a group of four people in 2009 YRP now boasts over 2,800 members and 25 corporate members.

Run entirely by volunteers, by young people in rail, for young people, in 2014/15 YRP went through a radical expansion by launching regional committees in each of the major rail industry hubs.

Each of these new groups has rallied together local communities of young people and each is now regularly delivering professional development seminars, networking events and education outreach activities serving their region.

We are very aware of the skills gap in the rail industry and YRP helps to address this by attracting more people to join our industry by actively promoting rail careers in schools, colleges and universities through its Ambassadors programme.

The community that YRP creates in rail also helps retain early career professionals within our industry by inspiring them as to what they can achieve and improving the prospects for young people within the rail industry.

There are now 64 committee members with formal roles on the committee across the UK, and dozens of extra committee members who attend meetings and work on projects.

Rallying all of these people together behind a common vision of promoting, inspiring and developing young people and having all of the groups working towards a common strategy and vision is a huge achievement for YRP.

This success has been driven by a great national executive team, led by Stephen Head, that brings the regions and workstream leads together to make sure everyone is working towards common goals, and at the same time pushing the boundaries by trying new ideas in different regions to learn from each other too.

The regionalisation of YRP has been deemed so much of a success that its treasured headline event, the Annual Black Tie Dinner and Dance, will be taking place in York in 2016 outside of London for the first time in its history.

The 16 members of the national executive committee members are:

- Stephen Head, Chairman (Interfleet)

- Sabrina Ihaddaden, Vice Chairman (Bombardier)

- Selena Strudwick, Secretary (Dentons)

- Chris Blackburn, Treasurer (TfL)

- Carl Soutra, London Region Chairman (Between jobs)

- Damon High, Western Region Chairman (WSP PB)

- Michael Charteris, West Midlands Region Chairman (Network Rail)

- Ben Parry, East Midlands Region Chairman (Bombardier)

- Kevin Gardner, Yorkshire Region Chairman (Siemens Rail Automation)

- Alan Tarrant, North West Region Chairman (Fission Recruitment)

- May-Ann Lew, Ambassadors Manager (Interfleet)

- Osian Evans, Networking & Development Manager (Pcubed)

- David Buttigieg, Networking & Development Manager (Network Rail)

- Julianna Moats, Comms & PR (WSP PB)

- Abhinav Sunny Chirayil, Marketing Manager (Bombardier)

- Paul Case, External Relations Manager (TfL)

... working with dozens of other YRP Committee Members across the country, all making remarkable contributions to the future of the rail industry by volunteering their spare time to make a difference.“

Paul Burkholder

Said the following about Young Rail Professionals:

“Through attending multiple events designed and executed by the Young Rail Professional Team, I have witnessed how effectively this team brings together professionals from across the industry. Their goal is simple; to create links at the grass roots of the rail industry at a personal level and in my experience they are greatly exceeding this goal.

I have been present at both National and Local events organised by this team and everyone I come into contact with shares their values of collaboration, openness and progression. As a young professional in the rail industry, I am fortunate to benefit from such a highly skilled and proactive group.“