On the fourth Friday of every month, with very few exceptions, you can find us at Bill’s hosting our sell-out Chamber Breakfasts.
Over 70 Chamber members, businesses, charities, entrepreneurs and social enterprises join us in getting up for an early 7.45am start (don’t ask what time the Chamber team arrives). As well as an opportunity to forge connections and meet people in our brilliant business community over breakfast - we also hear from a guest speaker.
From CEOs to headteachers, entrepreneurs to authors – they represent a diversity of thought and experience, offering us a very healthy dose of inspiration, and often something to take away into our own businesses, jobs, and everyday lives.
This has been my fourth year of Chamber Breakfasts and no exception on the inspiration scale. So, meet our delightful dozen, the 12 speakers we’ve heard from this year, and what we took away from their stories.
January: The ‘Safe and secure’ Breakfast with Lisa Baskott, 2nd Line of Defence
We kicked off the first Chamber Breakfast of the year with Lisa Baskott, hearing about her mission to change the narrative around security staff across the country.
The movement around Sarah Everard’s murder in 2021 sparked Lisa’s anger and determination to have more diverse security staff. She decided it was the time put herself at the forefront of the security sector – and after 18 months working the doors, spent gathering anecdotal evidence from drunk students, Lisa put her ‘big girl pants on’ and set up 2nd Line of Defence: the UK’s first female-focused private security recruitment agency.
Since then, she has continued push for transformational change in the industry, with diversity and inclusion being the key to this change.
February: The ’Going round in circles’ Breakfast with Dr David Greenfield from SEONECS and Tech-Takeback
Circles were no doubt the theme of February's Chamber Breakfast with circular economy specialist, Dr David Greenfield.
David's journey with circles began as a child, his parents owning a bike shop in Brighton. He ended up recycling bikes and even renovating the cycle track in Preston Park After attending university in Brighton, back to the wheels he went, working in cycling proficiency for the Council and eventually riding his way into waste management and recycling.
Now, he is the man behind SOENECS, advising councils and businesses on how they can be more circular. He also runs Tech-Takeback, a not-for-profit providing sustainable solutions for people's unwanted electricals.
David's work and passion has led him right back to the University of Brighton where he's now a professor and investing in start-ups trying to start their own circular journey. As would only be fitting – he has truly come full circle!
March: The ’Wordy’ Breakfast with Judy Yorke from The Sentence Works
March saw our Chamber Breakfast copywriter put down her pen and pick up the mic.
Judy Yorke has always loved words. From her first publication aged 10 (a newsletter for her household, featuring some very biased reports on Watford Football Club), she knew she wanted to be a journalist.
Since then, she’s gone on to write for national publications, glossy magazines, teach journalism, and set up The Sentence Works to help businesses with their copywriting.
And last summer, what started as a daily ‘warts and all’ Facebook update on her family’s interrailing adventure around Europe turned into her first book: Crowded Platforms and Window Seats. It quickly topped the Amazon charts in German travel books, and event beat Thomas the Tank Engine in the trains category.
April: The ‘Kindness’ Breakfast with Professor Robin Banerjee from Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness
Professor Robin Banerjee runs the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness, and (amongst many other) takeaways from his talk was to always ‘hunt for the good’.
Born in England but spending most of his childhood in Japan - Robin says where you're from is where you hang your hat. His subsequent interest in social connection, born out of his international experience as a child, and later travels as an adult, is what’s driven his work and personal interests. Whether that’s running The Kindness Test in partnership with the BBC, or his love of baseball and salsa dancing.
Robin reminded us that kindness is around us all the time, not just in those big gestures of kindness, but in something as simple as holding the door for someone. If we look for the positive, and the good, we'll create an environment that nurtures kindness - in our businesses and otherwise!
May: The ‘Responsible Breakfast’ with Tim Williamson from Responsible Travel
The transformative power of volunteering, learning from things that don’t always go right, and commuting to Luton - three key themes from May’s Chamber Breakfast speaker, Tim Williamson.
Now the Joint Managing Director of Responsible Travel, Tim talked us through his career in the travel industry, working for big brands like First Choice and Monarch Airlines. These days, when he’s not helping people to go on holidays that give back to local people and communities, he volunteers across different charities and organisations in the city too.
After a transformative trip to Eswatini, where Tim and his family volunteered in a school for orphaned and vulnerable children, he’s involved in a number of charities and projects across Brighton.
June: The ’Mind the Gap’ Breakfast with Mo Kanjilal from Watch This Sp_ce
Mo Kanjilal is a TEDx speaker, charity board trustee, non-exec director, author and Co-Creator at Watch This Sp_ce. Her Chamber Breakfast talk began with her family’s story: her mum, dad and aunt emigrated from Bengal in 1968, moving to London and then Suffolk, where her father was the town doctor. In both London and Suffolk, her family experienced racism – from bricks through windows in London, to microaggressions in Suffolk.
After studying English at Sussex University, she moved into marketing, although quickly realised she was best at sales. Mo travelled the world, selling a range of complex tech, progressing in male-dominated corporates.
Mo met her now business partner, Allegra Chapman, at a panel event for The Girls' Network – and in lockdown, they set up diversity and inclusion consultancy Watch This Sp_ce, working with employers to map out their inclusion journey (their first book, The Inclusion Journey, came out in August!)
July: The ‘Immersive’ Breakfast with Martin Howe from Teq4 and Brighton AI
Martin Howe has spent his working life introducing new technologies across the world.
From beginning his career as a draftsman, working on paper and corresponding through letters, to Head of Teq4 and Co-founding Brighton AI - he's had an interesting and varied career of creating immersive and interactive experiences.
At July’s Chamber Breakfast, Martin shared his journey and where it's taken him so far, from immersive tech to red carpets, and accidentally meeting the Queen (twice).
August: The ‘Accidental’ Breakfast with Simon Batchelar from Reframing Marketing
Simon Batchelar failed a dyslexia test in their teens, setting them on their career path of what they call a series of happy accidents.
Although these chance encounters seem to be a theme of Simon’s career – whether it’s the heady pre-Google days of creating websites, filming behind the scenes of Star Wars or helping a man named Desmond transport a piano across the Himalayas – they can also be attributed to Simon’s curiosity, clear enjoyment of adventure, and by simply saying yes to things.
And last year, Simon embarked on ‘the ultimate dyslexic challenge’ and wrote a book, Reframing Marketing: A three step plan for effective and ethical marketing – something they wouldn’t have believed 14-year-old Simon could do.
September: The ‘Challenge and support’ Breakfast with Anita Grant from Sussex Police
September’s Chamber Breakfast speaker was Anita Grant, Assistant Chief Officer for Trust and Legitimacy at Sussex Police (an admittedly long job title – one that she made up herself!)
Anita’s career is defined by what she calls arguing with people about doing things differently. She grew up in Camden, and ended up working on the Sure Start Programme which later morphed into Children’s Centre, where she ran 13 adventure playgrounds in Islington.
Her current work in the Sussex Police means she’s part of every decision-making process at the police – from how they police protests to how to recruit and leading on their race action plan. She says just by the very fact of being there and being different, she brings something else into the room. She wants to look at how these discussions can continue when she’s not in the room, by finding people that do the job differently and challenge what’s gone before. Because if you can’t call the police on your worst day, who can you call?
October: The ‘Educational’ Breakfast with Jack Davies from Brighton Aldridge Community Academy
Jack Davies has had an unconventional route to becoming a headteacher. Now Principal at Brighton Aldridge Community Academy, he talked about his five key principles that have brought him to where he is today, making successful schools:
- Eliminate threat - making sure students have everything they need to succeed
- Have clear systems that every person is on board with
- Promote your team and celebrate success
- Have one voice (no teacher voice!)
- And finally, happiness – the importance of keeping a smile on your face
November: The ‘Write on’ Breakfast with author Catherine Gray
It's said that everyone has a book in them - but few ever manage to sit down and write it, and even fewer hit the big time.
Catherine Gray falls happily into the latter category – she is a Sunday Times best-selling author, who's sold half a million books and had them translated into 10 languages. And in conversation with Flo Powell from Midnight Communications, at our November Breakfast she talked us through her journey to sobriety and writing her first non-fiction book, The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober.
Catherine shared all that followed, from the surge in our culture of sober curiosity, her tips for budding authors, and thoughts on how we can create more inclusive environments in the workplace.
The ’Lift your spirits’ Breakfast with artist Kerry Lemon
Kerry Lemon is an artist that’s driven by social impact and scientific collaboration, helping connect audiences with the natural world.
Growing up though, Kerry wasn’t from a background where she knew anyone that was doing anything like this. A first-generation scholar, she ditched her careers advice from school to be a teacher and studied art at university instead. Fast-forward through working six part-time jobs at once and more studies in-between, she became a full-time illustrator – doing books, magazines, album covers – but got to the point where she didn’t want to be told what to draw any more, plus was growingly conscious of the environmental impact of her temporary installations.
So, she changed what she was doing. She’s became a registered B Corp, and now works entirely in public art – with 78 sculptures and counting across the UK - her work anchors and connects people to the natural world.
Whether it’s inspiration to do something differently, a reminder to be yourself, tips and tricks for business, or just an interesting story – Chamber Breakfast speakers in 2025 are shaping up to be as top-notch as 2024. They are sell-out events so get in quick for January!
If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk