Strategic Apprenticeship Levy Consultant Kate Temple-Brown is an expert in her field. Now she's teamed up with Gradvert on an exciting new collaboration.
Can you tell us a bit about your career?
I worked in early careers recruitment and development for Goldman Sachs for seven years, followed by other roles predominantly in the investment banking sector. I then went on to work for Bank of England, where I set up their early careers proposition. When the Apprenticeship Levy was launched, I was really excited so I decided to set up my own strategic Apprenticeship Levy consultancy – Aequalis – to focus on helping organisations understand the opportunity.
How did your relationship with Gradvert come about?
I met Gradvert managing director Michaela Reaney at a conference and we quickly realised that we wanted to work together so we teamed up on this new collaboration.
I passionately believe in talent, developing people and getting the best out of them and I know that Michaela and the Gradvert team feel the same way so it was a perfect partnership.
We’re offering outstanding, bespoke training intervention in customer service and leadership and management but the difference is that companies can use their levy pot to fund our opportunities.
It sounds like a great chance for companies to maximise their Apprenticeship Levy spend. How will it work?
We start with a strategic conversation about the client’s broader talent needs. We look at any talent challenges and then how they can use the apprenticeship reforms to maximise the opportunity and bring in transparent and rigorous development pathways that are cost-effectively funded.
We then develop top-quality, bespoke training, which is paid for from a client’s levy to address those talent challenges.
What we’re trying to say is when you develop your talent with our training interventions, it can make a huge difference to your business, and we can show you a cost-effective way to do it.
What has the reaction been so far?
This is something totally unique, it’s been mindblowing and the client list already speaks for itself. We have worked with companies like Multiplex, BT, Diageo, investment bank ICBC and the Financial Conduct Authority.
Companies absolutely love it because instead of having to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to set up a leadership and management programme, they can get it free of charge because it’s money that’s already in a pot. They’re absolutely delighted they can leverage their learning and development budget in this way.
