Level Up Your Creative Career – Practical skills for the Real World

Thu, 12 Nov 2026 10:00 - 13:30

Practical workshops helping students, graduates and early-career professionals prepare for employment and advance their careers.

Building on CIM’s mission of knowledge-sharing and mentorship, this workshop aims to connect young graduates and early-career professionals with experienced industry experts.

Through practical, hands-on sessions led by BritCham members, participants will gain useful skills, better understand workplace expectations and build professional connections.

In collaboration with the BritCham Shanghai’s Education Committee

Admission includes tea and coffee.

10:00 – 10:15 Registration & Coffee
10:15 – 10:25 Welcome & Introduction
10:25 – 11:15 Workshop 1: Would You Hire You? Make Your Value Impossible to Miss | Warwick John Fahy — Business Psychologist & Leadership Communication Speaker
11:15 – 11:25 Short Break
11:25 – 12:15 Workshop 2: Design Your Way In: Standing Out in Creative Careers | Ioanna Wei — Talent Director, Greater China, WPP
12:15 – 12:30 Coffee / Networking Break
12:30 – 13:20 Workshop 3: Mapping the Next Step on Your Career Journey | Jessica Gleeson — Founder & CEO, BrighterBeauty
13:20 – 13:30 Wrap-up & Takeaways

* The Chamber reserves the right to alter the above agenda at its sole discretion.

Disclaimer: By joining this event, you agree that photos, video, and audio recordings taken onsite may be publicly shared by the Chamber for promotional and communication purposes.

Notes:

In case of cancellation, please kindly note you must email the BritCham Shanghai Event staff eloise.zhang@britishchambershanghai.cn before 5 pm, 10 Oct. Due to the service charges of Glueup and online payment platforms, we can only partially refund up to 90% of your ticket price and payment will be processed within 14 days after the event via your original payment method. However, it is non-refundable for a cancellation request made beyond the above-mentioned timeframe.

This workshop is ideal for university students, recent graduates, UK alumni and early-career professionals preparing to enter the job market or take the next step in their careers.

Whether you’re looking for your first job, exploring career options or wanting to improve your professional skills, these hands-on sessions will help you prepare for the real world of work.

Workshop 1: Would You Hire You? Make Your Value Impossible to Miss | Warwick John Fahy — Business Psychologist & Leadership Communication Speaker

Workshop Info

Would you hire you? This hands-on workshop helps students, graduates and young professionals make their strengths visible to employers. Using The Most Visible Leader framework: Reputation, Alignment and Influence – you will identify what you want to be known for, connect your strengths to an employer’s needs and support your message with credible examples. Through short exercises, paired practice and feedback, you will develop a clear personal value statement and a 30-second introduction you can use in applications, interviews and networking.

Key Takeaways:

Identify your distinctive strengths and support them with concrete examples.
Create an employer-relevant value statement for your CV, profile and applications.
Practise a clear, credible 30-second introduction and improve it through feedback.

Workshop 2: Design Your Way In: Standing Out in Creative Careers | Ioanna Wei — Talent Director, Greater China, WPP

Workshop Info

If an algorithm can generate your CV in 10 seconds, why would a Creative Director spend more than 5 seconds reading it? In a job market saturated with automated applications, standing out requires human craft, not just efficiency. Curated by Ioanna Wei, Talent Director, Greater China at WPP, this interactive session tackles one of the hardest briefs in the world: getting noticed by busy people who don’t have time for you. Through real cases and hands-on sprints, participants will learn how to turn career friction into creative advantage and design their own unforgettable way into the industry.

Key Takeaways:

Beyond the AI Template: Understand why efficiency alone makes you invisible, and learn what agency leaders actually look for: taste, initiative, and human craft.
Turn Friction into Creative Craft: Master techniques to reframe your perceived career barriers—like location or inexperience—into your sharpest creative pitch.
From the Pitch to Agency Life: Discover how the creative problem-solving used to win client pitches is the exact mindset needed to thrive inside an agency.

Workshop 3: Mapping the Next Step on Your Career Journey | Jessica Gleeson — Founder & CEO, BrighterBeauty

Workshop Info

This workshop explores how you can use mind mapping to help explore career transitions, prepare for interviews and clarify what makes a role ideal for you.

Key Takeaways:

Clarify career aspirations and identify strengths, interests, and target roles.
Prepare for interviews by structuring thoughts visually and anticipating common questions.
Differentiate themselves from competitors and confidently pursue new roles.

Ioanna Wei

Ioanna Wei, Talent Director, Greater China, WPP

Ioanna Wei is Talent Director, Greater China at WPP, where she leads senior executive recruitment across the region. Over the past 13 years at WPP, she has worked across Greater China and APAC, leading searches for senior leadership roles including CEO, CTO, CFO and CSO. She also advises leaders on talent market insights, succession pipelining and hiring strategy. Ioanna is passionate about helping emerging talent understand what employers look for and how to build careers with intention in a fast-changing market.

Jessica Gleason

CEO, BrighterBeauty; Founder, Experiential Retail

Jessica Gleeson is CEO of BrighterBeauty and founder of Experiential Retail, an international executive passionate about helping purpose-driven brands scale with integrity. A 20-year Starbucks veteran, she held leadership roles as the company grew from 50 U.S. stores to 55 countries, including supporting its China market entry. She later helped grow Starbucks, Disney, and Claire’s Accessories in China, and served as International COO for Zambrero and Pacific Springboard.

Jessica advises Atiom, GloCoach, and Cindy Reid Global Golf, and serves on GloCoach’s board. A sought-after China market thought leader cited by Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times. She is an International Experience Ambassador for the City of Shanghai and actively mentors in the entrepreneurial community. Honored with IPWS’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Jessica champions placing women on boards and expanding access to funding for female founders, because the data shows it’s simply good business.

Warwick John Fahy

Communication Professional & Author

Warwick John Fahy is a communication professional and published author of The One Minute Presenter: an 8 step guide to delivering successful business presentations in a world of short attention spans. This book has become the reference for busy executive presenters who need practical and effective tips to improve their influencing and public speaking skills. Unlike many professional speakers who started young, Warwick’s journey took a completely different path. As an introverted child, he avoided speaking in public. Several traumatic experiences in school left Warwick very shy and self-conscious in public. At twelve years old, Warwick cried while on stage during a drama performance because he forgot his lines. After that, Warwick found every excuse not to speak in public. He feigned illness in high school rather than deliver a presentation to the school and he steered clear of the debating society. During his career as a sales and marketing executive, although delivering 100 presentations a year to high technology companies, Warwick was a ball of sweat while presenting. It was only in his 30s, when he dedicated hundreds of hours to working on his public speaking skills, that he found he could not only enjoy public speaking but that it became his passion. Since 2003, Warwick has spoken internationally deliverimg more than 3,650 sessions across AsiaPacific, Europe and North America. From his experience working with executives from Asian and Western cultures, Warwick has found that public speaking mastery takes an executive much further and much faster than technical skills alone. For services to the public speaking industry, Warwick was inducted into the Toastmasters International Hall of Fame in August 2007 for pioneering leadership as chairman for Toastmasters in China. Warwick is a Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) with the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), and founder of a digital creative marketing services firm. He holds an MSc in Organisational Psychology with Distinction from City, University of London. Warwick is passionate about nature and health, which he combines by participating in endurance races around the world, including the epic Ironman. By applying, performance psychology Warwick won 5 triathlon races and continues to podium in his age-group. His current focus is helping people leaders become visible where global decisions are made. Through keynote speaking, corporate workshops and executive coaching, he helps leaders strengthen their public speaking, build a credible personal brand and communicate clearly under pressure. His signature work, The Most Visible Leader, brings together reputation, alignment and influence to help leaders turn their expertise into meaningful impact.

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