Jimmy's Jobs of the Future - Sarah Wood & Izzy Obeng

Good morning, 

This email includes: 

Please forward this email to someone who may need some career inspiration about jobs of the future, if you have been forwarded it, you can sign up here. 

First is Dr. Sarah Wood OBE who was a university lecturer in American studies but in the wake of being caught up in the 7/7 terrorist attacks decided she wanted more flexibility and created a global advertising marketplace called Unruly. In the end it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for a nine figure sum (I’ll let you count that on your fingers …)

Sarah was one of the first social media pioneers in the UK. 

We discuss the politics and virality of online laughter (not that I always found it quite so amusing in my role as a political adviser!) and how she now runs a course at Cambridge University called: Mashups, Memes and Online Laughter. 

She is now a senior independent director of TechNation, a network for ambitious entrepreneurs. In this role, she mentions, the big growth areas being in health and energy sometimes referred to as CleanTech or Greentech.

We also discuss some of the most important roles being software engineers, data analysts and marketing. 

There were three companies that Sarah namechecked. 

Olio - is a mobile app for food-sharing, aiming to reduce food waste. It does this by connecting those with surplus food to those who need or wish to consume such food. It is run by the very impressive Tessa Clarke 

Florence - is an online marketplace seamlessly connecting independent nurses and carers with the shifts they want.

Farewill - is making the process around will writing much easier and attempting to make life simpler for the loved ones when someone passes away. 

You can listen to that episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also purchase Sarah’s book, Stepping Up: How to accelerate your leadership potential, a career handbook for millennials here.

The 4th episode that we released last week was with Izzy Obeng who created Foundervine. Izzy was one of the most impressive people I encountered when working in Downing Street. 

Foundervine is about helping black and ethnic minorities start businesses, it has helped over 2,000 people already despite only being founded two years ago. 

You can check out the website of Foundervine here, I am very proud to sit on the advisory board of Foundervine. 

You can listen to that Episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. 

As I have mentioned, I am bootstrapping all of this, so am very appreciative of any shares on social media particularly on LinkedIn.

But we are also on on

Instagram: @jimmysjobs

Twitter: @jimmysjobs

Or of course even be old fashioned and tell a friend who is contemplating a career change, direct referrals are the best way of growing the podcast. 

As ever if you have any thoughts about the podcast, just hit reply to this email.

Next week’s guest is Pete Flint, the Venture Capitalist who has been part of the founding team of two separate billion dollar companies, LastMinute.com and Trulia. 

He wrote an outstanding piece on how to 10X your career -we’ll be exploring the piece a lot on the podcast, so it’s worth checking out here.

I recorded the interview last night and it is an absolute cracker.

Founders Forum are combing these themes, having a session with Matt Moulding who recently IPO’d the Hut Group, a Manchester based business for £5.4 billion (Alex Ralph in The Times) and Poppy Gustafsson of Darktrace which according to Mark Kleinman of Sky News is planning a £3.8billion IPO for early next year.

See Brent’s tweet for more details

If you enjoyed the interview with Pip Jamieson (episode 2) then you can listen to Pip and I on the Squiggly Careers Podcast talking about the reskilling revolution, which is available here. 

Squiggly Careers really is a brilliant concept, Sarah and Helen have even written a Sunday Times best seller on how career ladders no longer exist, and it is all about squiggles.

You can buy directly from them here and you can visit their website here.

I am playing a bit more golf than I used too, as I slowly realise my days of charging around rugby and football pitches are coming to end … (and it is so awfully depressing watching my beloved Derby County who sit bottom of the Championship)

So I am sure over the next year, I’ll be able to pull off a shot like this: 

Please forward this email to someone who may need some career inspiration about jobs of the future, if you have been forwarded it, you can sign up here.