Miranda Brawn is a Multi-Award Winning Senior Finance, Legal & Diversity Executive in the UK. She has been hailed as a trailblazer and honoured numerous times domestically and internationally. This includes Top 100 Women in European Finance (Financial News), UK's Top 10 inspiring females changing Britain (The Metro) and Top 100 Global BAME Business Executive Leaders Powerlist (Financial Times).
Miranda has built a reputation over the past two decades for helping others achieve success. Recognised as a leading world-class diversity leader, she advises some of the world’s most influential leaders who run multi-billion pound companies where numerous people have attended her speaking events. We had the opportunity to ask her some questions and get some advice.
What is your job title and what do you do?
I have a portfolio career which means that I have a few job titles. These include investment banker, barrister, social entrepreneur, diversity champion, public speaker, board advisor, patron and writer. I am also Founder and CEO of the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Foundation helping to increase all forms of diversity.
Where were you born and what did your parents do?
I was born, raised and educated in London, UK. Both of my parents worked and taught me from a very early age about the importance of having a strong work ethic. My mother was a lawyer and my father was an engineer and property developer.
What were your early influences?
My early influences spanned across coming from a very diverse family background (i.e. Black, White and Asian). Therefore, I learnt to appreciate and understand different cultures, religions and social backgrounds. This has helped me as an adult where I can social and do business with a range of people and clients from diverse backgrounds. I was blessed to come from a loving home where my parents instilled in me at a very early age the importance of education. I was a very bright child where I was walking at seven months and talking shortly thereafter. Hence, it was the expectation that I was going to be highly educated and successful as an adult. This is key to helping the next generation succeed. They have to believe in themselves in order to be successful while having the right surroundings to reinforce this from an early age.
Many people are freelance and/or have portfolio careers nowadays. What is your advice to them, how can they follow your lead and get your kind of mindset and be financially successful too?
Financial success is not just a matter of money. It is a state of mind and your mindset begins with gratitude. My top three tips are first, every day focus for ten minutes on the things you are grateful for and visualise your goals. Second, give back by choosing another percentage of your income that is automatically given away to a charity or a good cause(s). Third, choose a percentage of your income that is automatically saved. Starting early with saving and investing is key for financial success.
You give back a lot to society where one of your passions is to increase diversity in the workforce. Your Foundation has done an amazing job putting themselves behind diversity and equality in the workplace while empowering the next generation. Tell us more about your Foundation.
There are two aspects to creating an extraordinary quality of life; the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. The secret to living is giving. Anyone can start to give back today whether it is their money or time.
In 2016, my non-profit Foundation dedicated to empowering next generation, introduced a new kind of scholarship called the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Scholarship which was focused not just on funding but work experience and mentoring too.
The Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Annual Lecture, the first of its kind in the UK, is an annual event in London is to laud the country’s best next generation diversity leaders. This lecture made UK history winning a UK Prime Minister ‘Points of Light’ Award and personal praise from HRH Prince Charles of Wales. These ideas were conceived to celebrate and encourage the next generation to work towards a diverse workplace.
This year we have some of the UK’s best diversity leaders speaking at the lecture including Shami Chakrabarti (Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales) to help educate and inspire. We are thrilled to be partnering with the University of Law, Hogan Lovells, the Prince’s Trust, Mosaic LGBT Youth Centre and Lambeth Council to make these scholarships and diversity lecture available across a wider spectrum of young people and look forward to all of this year's recipients becoming diversity leaders.
My foundation has also launched a mentoring programme where we mentor several BAME young leaders per week to help them succeed. A donation is also being made to the young people affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. An investment in the next generation is crucial to success.
This year’s scholarship application process is open now and the calibre of applications has been impressive. The deadline date has been extended until 29th July 2017 to allow students who have been studying for exams to apply via http://mirandabrawn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Scholarship-Application-Form-2.pdf.
You can follow Miranda Brawn and the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Foundation on:
Twitter: @brawnm https://twitter.com/brawnm and @MBDiversityLead https://twitter.com/MBDiversityLead
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MirandaBrawnEsq
Website: www.mirandabrawn.com
