Week 14 - Guest Speakers Momtaz Ajid (CEO) & Kobitha Sultana (Office Manager)

This week we have special guest speakers, Momtaz Ajid (CEO of Leaders In Community) and Kobitha Sultana (Office Manager at We Are Peas).

Kobitha Sultana

Title: Office Manager

Company: We Are Peas

Age: 19




Kobitha started off by talking about her journey into employment.

At the age of 17 she had dropped out of college, against her parents wishes, and started her first apprenticeship in Business Administration.

She later participated in 2 other apprenticeships and numerous training courses, working in temporary reception and administrative roles whenever she could find the work.

After a year and a half she finally secured a permanent position as an administrator at We Are Peas and currently works as its Office Manager.

All at the tender age of 19.

Our young candidates found Kobitha's journey refreshing to hear as many, despite parental pressures, were considering not going to University. Partly due to the recent and massive rise in university fees.

She made it sound easy, but had actually sent out over 100 CVs before securing her first apprenticeship.

And her motivation had all come from herself. No one had pushed her to apply everyday, or go out to shops handing in her CVs.

I took this as an opportunity to ask how many CVs our young people had handed out since they had started the program. The answer was around 40 total, between all ten of them.

Their target is now 100 CVs each before the end of the program.

Momtaz Ajid

Company: Leaders In Community (LiC)

Title: CEO & Founder

Age: 28





Momtaz spoke on the importance of volunteering.

It's an opportunity to do something you love and gain working experience.

A chance to show a company your potential, possibly leading onto a paid job.

LiC employs 7 members of staff, and almost every single one started as a volunteer.

Momtaz herself was also a volunteer at another company before creating Leaders In Community

Dressing Professionally
This week was especially useful for the girls who got to talk about how to dress professionally as a woman (Anhar and I had been distracting them with shiny objects whenever they asked us).

For the boys, was quite simple... wear a suit.

The boys made the poor choice of choosing a pink pen to jot down ideas on good interview appearance

For the girls, it was slightly more complicated with issues to worry about such as:

• Make up application
• Shortness of skirt
• Hair styles

Some ideas from the girls on good appearance for females going to an interview

*Special thanks to Momtaz and Kobitha for giving up their time to come out and speak to the group.