Featured Apprentice Story

Toby is a Level 6 Chartered Business Management Degree Apprentice, studying with the University of Kent and is progressing well in his third and final year to achieve a FIRST. In addition, Toby will be awarded recognition from the Chartered Management Institute which will bolster his ‘day role’ as a project manager with expertise within the cybersecurity space. Moreover, Toby is heavily involved in numerous voluntary roles that ‘give back’ to his colleagues and external partners such as: co-leading IBM’s Apprentice Community, supporting mental wellbeing groups and driving change within the counter terrorism education sector.

Toby has an instrumental role within IBM’s future strategy as the technical projects that he manages monitor the critical national infrastructure for the UK, helping to secure large organisations and individuals from advancing cyber threats. Toby utilises the skills and frameworks he learns at University within his daily team meetings and ad-hoc issue resolution calls where he ensures his team are working in cohesion and with the support of one another. This ensures that he delivers a positive experience for his clients as they journey towards the highest possible returns on their investment in a secure environment, often creating further opportunities to work with clients outside of project work.

In addition to his ‘day role’, Toby co-leads and provides consistent direction to IBM’s Apprentice Community, with the aim of bringing life to the work-life balance for all apprentices. This takes the form of social events, supporting the transition of young people into the world of work, and career progression guidance from graduated apprentices and career coaches within the main business. The community also plans and executes IBM’s National Apprenticeship Week initiatives, which support external stakeholders too such as prospective apprentices, their families, and current apprentice stakeholders from across industry.

National Apprenticeship Week is special for IBM, where ‘IBMers’, and the diverse communities Toby supports, recognise and celebrate apprentices. The week of events includes open public sessions that are streamed to mass audiences and NAW 2022 included an arranged visit from the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills: Alex Burghart MP, who was asked to deliver his views on the importance of apprenticeships in the evolving world of work, in close ties with the NAW agenda (Build the Future), to attract new communities into the folds of IBM and the Apprentice Community. Burghart chose to acknowledge IBM’s frontrunning successes: “I do want to congratulate IBM on being outstanding and I would, of course, expect nothing less of IBM being outstanding”.

Toby is a selfless advocate for supporting this innovative and thought-leading work by providing opportunities for junior apprentices, such as speaking in parliament and with other decision makers, with the platform to create their own personable brand too.

With Toby’s strategic view of the Apprentice Community, the community strives to collaborate with other groups such as the internal mental health and wellbeing team for early professionals. Toby is frequently involved in the planning phases of the collaborative events to ensure that they are tailored to, and directly engaged with, the unique needs of apprentices. Toby achieves this by using his own apprenticeship experience to recognise the challenges of balancing work and education as well as writing articles that relate to his personal life which demonstrates the approachable personality he has.

Toby always considers the bigger picture and how he can use the platform he has created for himself to make positive changes to those outside of IBM too. This is most notable in his efforts as an active member of the London Counter Terrorism Youth Advisory Group. In support of IBM’s PREVENT Lead, Toby collaborates with 12 other members at New Scotland Yard to discuss how the mandatory PREVENT education can be updated to meet the targeted audience. A key change that Toby formulated and bought to the table questioned why PREVENT education is mandatory and that the reasons behind this mandate should be integrated into the relevant education. This is currently being rolled out, with backing from the Metropolitan Police’s PREVENT and CONTEST leads as well as IBM executives, for early professionals at IBM and others supported by the University of Kent to rethink the role PREVENT has in protecting everyone!

Toby easily articulates links between his responsibilities and frequently utilises these crossovers with his university projects, by finding relevant research models to expand the success of his efforts. He has recently explored how different types of leadership affect the cybersecurity culture within organisations and discovered that the most secure organisations have employees who have the mental resiliency to report vulnerabilities - Something which he now shares with his clients as well as the mental health community to encourage everyone to feel confident in reporting concerns, to protect all.