Alumni Network
Previous graduates have gone on to promote change in the most influential areas of society. All our alumni are part of an active and influential alumni network. This provides a hugely valuable means for graduates of the Forum for the Future Masters course to use each other as a first port of call when seeking solutions to tricky sustainability problems.
Elisabeth Filkin, graduated 2010
Sustainability Consultant at Jones Lang LaSalle's Upstream Sustainability Services
The Forum for the Future Masters provided me with a fantastic opportunity to learn about sustainability in the real world and to really get to grips with the opportunities and challenges that exist across different sectors. The placement opportunities are unrivalled, as are the quality of the lectures. Both stimulate lively discussion and debate and being part of the tight-knit class of twelve is ideal for learning and exploring ideas in a safe and supportive environment.
The Masters was by far the most challenging yet fulfilling learning experience of my life. In particular it has fast-tracked my ability to understand and communicate sustainability in a holistic and commercially valuable way, whilst also enabling me to understand and work on my strengths and weaknesses.
This is a brilliant opportunity for anyone seeking a career in sustainability – I would do it again if I could!
Ben Gill, graduated 2010
Sustainability Consultant at BioRegional
After a degree in architecture, my concern and passion to do something about sustainability initially led me to a job as an urban designer, master planning sustainable communities of the future. Growing media coverage and coordinating a low-carbon community outside work led to frustration at not addressing the scale and urgency of the challenge through my job. The Forum Masters offered an unbelievable opportunity to learn, take stock and open doors - it’s the perfect course for someone with a vision of a sustainable future but unsure of their role or which path to take.
Whilst the value of the placements (from developing a sustainability strategy for Bupa to blogging at The Financial Times) cannot be underplayed, of most value for me was my personal and group development journey. It gave me the skills and confidence to begin putting my learning into practice at sustainability-solutions charity BioRegional. Whilst the course set the trajectory for change, I have now set to work on making it happen.
Max Hogg, graduated 2009
Forum for the Future’s Masters course offers a unique opportunity to learn about sustainable development in the real world, not just the lecture hall. Course placements offer abundant real-world experience in varied and challenging settings. From learning what makes a good sustainable development story in order to publish articles in the Financial Times, to understanding how to help a pressurised policy team incorporate sustainability into an education white paper at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Masters is a highly effective launch-pad into a career delivering positive social change.
Whether my fellow graduates from 2009 and I enter the public, private or voluntary sectors, we will understand what the journalist, business person, civil servant or campaigner sitting across the table needs in order to implement sustainable development. This breadth of understanding and ability to empathise across work boundaries would take years to develop without Forum’s Masters. I cannot recommend the course strongly enough!
Peter Hughes, graduated 2008
Sustainability Manager at Uniq Plc
My ten months on the Forum Masters course was a completely unique experience and an excellent transition from academia to the working world. The quality of tuition is extremely high and has given me an incredible understanding of sustainable development that I would not find elsewhere.
Through the five placements, I experienced the vast range of roles that a career in sustainability can offer. My most rewarding placement was with Unilever. I had access to high-level staff, giving me an amazing opportunity to see sustainability progress in a global company. I wrote a CSR communications strategy which was presented to directors and is now being implemented. I have also met some amazing, like-minded people, not least my course mates. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to deliver positive change through their career.
Ann Cousins, graduated 2007
Sustainability Consultant at Arup
I worked full-time for a year following my first degree, and didn’t feel ready to go back into academia proper, but I also knew that a new qualification would be really useful if I wanted to move into a career in sustainable development. The Forum Masters programme was a great balance – I gained new knowledge, but also a wealth of experience and contacts, which would otherwise have taken years to accumulate.
Immediately after graduating, I worked for the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges, which acts as the sustainability champion for higher and further education. Since 2008, I have been working as a sustainability consultant for Arup in Bristol. I have had the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects, from providing regional policy advice to providing technical inputs into a housing retrofit project. The presentation, communication, report writing and networking skills that I gained during my Forum year have all been immensely valuable.
Rowena Ganguli, graduated 2006
Buyer at Innocent Drinks and Co-founder of the London Orchard Project
Almost immediately after finishing the Masters course I got a job as Graduate Trainee Project Manager at Abel & Cole. Over 300 people applied for the job, and my Masters qualification helped me to get short listed. Straightaway I was given a lot of responsibility. The practical insights I gained on the course gave me good grounding in turning theories of sustainable development into practical projects and advice.
The course has an excellent reputation in sustainability circles, which enhances the prospects of its graduates. I would strongly recommend the course to anyone who has high career aspirations and an interest in challenging the status quo.
Rowan Gray, graduated 2005
Sustainability Services Team Manager at Deloitte
Forum for the Future's Masters course provides a fantastic combination of hands-on work experience and academic grounding from leading thinkers in the field. It is a year that throws up unique opportunities in abundance. Since graduating I have spent a year working at BAA on the topical issue of climate change and aviation before joining Deloitte's Corporate Responsibility consulting team where I work with FTSE 100 companies on issues across a diverse range of sectors.
Forum for the Future has provided a great basis working in this exciting and challenging field.
Dan Rea, graduated 2002
Manager, Global Infrastructure Projects at KPMG
After studying a Masters in civil engineering, I was awarded the (Transco) engineering scholarship for 2001/02. Although I knew I wanted to work in engineering, when I saw the Forum Masters course I had to do it - the six placements alone were like a condensed career of learning.
After graduating I joined the world-leading engineering consultancy, Arup, and have worked in design and project management of large mixed-use regeneration schemes in the UK and abroad and gained my chartered engineering status. In 2005 I took a 12 month sabbatical and went to Zambia to be a site engineer and manager of the construction of a small hydro scheme on the upper Zambezi River.
Since returning to London and Arup I have been awarded the construction industry 2007 Achiever of the Year award. I am in no doubt that the year spent on the Forum Masters gave me the foundation and adaptability for a diverse, exciting and positive career.
Toby Hammond, graduated 2001
Co-founder and director of Better Generation
The course was an action-packed, intensive year of applied work placements, and then group feedback sessions. Why just learn the theory of sustainability, when you can roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty? Highlights for me were working at the Cooperative Bank on their ethical vetting policies, and seeing first hand what the RSPB is doing on climate change.
Through friends I made on the course, one year later I found myself on a 8,000 mile cycle expedition through Africa to the Earth Summit 2002 in Johannesburg, and two years later, joining an environmental consultancy and then co-founding Better Generation, the renewable energy business I now run. I'm certain that things would have worked out very differently without the help, inspiration and connections made through the year on the Forum masters course.
Joanna Yarrow, graduated 1998
Founder Director of Beyond Green
The Forum Masters programme was a fast-track introduction to the opportunities and challenges of building a more sustainable future. It taught me a huge amount about how the world works, gave me a range of invaluable knowledge and skills, and a dizzying array of experiences and contacts that would have otherwise taken decades and a huge amount of luck to accumulate.
In 2002 I co-founded sustainability company Beyond Green, putting the principles of sustainability into practice through strategic and practical projects across a range of sectors. I’m director of Blue Living, a property development company delivering places that encourage and enable sustainable living. I also present TV programmes on sustainable living, am editor of a new green lifestyles magazine (Eco-You) and am contemplating writing my third book. The Forum Masters is a unique springboard for anyone wanting to make a real difference to the future of our planet and society.
Ed Gillespie, graduated 1998
Co-founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications
It may sound a bit daft and hyperbolic but the Forum course changed my life! I was a frustrated fisheries biologist and the practical ‘Grand Tour of British Society’ of unique work-based learning experiences in different sectors – combined with the intensity and invaluable insights derived from the group learning approach – led to a seismic shift in my aspirations and ambitions.
Following the Masters course, in 2001 I co-founded Futerra (along with another Forum alumnus), a specialist sustainability communications agency. Since then we have agitated and engaged around the role of the creative industries in helping accelerate (or block) the journey towards sustainability; provoking new, and challenging established, ways of thinking about communication; and exploring how we can better generate attitude and behaviour change.
It has been an amazing decade full of adventure and excitement, including a year spent travelling around the world without flying, and the Masters course was the inspiration for taking me in a whole new direction.
Solitaire Townsend, graduated 1998
Co-founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications
My experience of the Forum course is now a decade or so ago, although in many ways it seems like yesterday. Although the career acceleration and ‘know how’ from the course have been invaluable, the friendships forged during my year are even more precious to me. Back then we spent long hours into the night planning what we’d each do to drive sustainable development.
Ten years later we now meet to talk about the companies we’ve established, the departments we run, and the projects we’re managing. As an Arts graduate my learning curve on the Forum Masters was steep, having to familiarize myself with the science and economics of sustainability. But a communications background prepared me well for what happened next. In 2001, with two fellow alumni, I established my company Futerra. We are now the world’s leading communications agency specializing in sustainable development PR, marketing and design. With our team of over 20 staff we’ve developed campaigns for international businesses, charities and the United Nations.
The annual alumni away weekend is one of the highlights of my year, giving us all the chance to catch up and continue those conversations we started years ago.
Stephen Hale, graduated 1997
Deputy Advocacy and Campaigns Director at Oxfam International, Geneva
I was part of the first cohort of Forum scholars, a lifetime ago in 1996-97. It was a fascinating year. I saw the Forum Masters as a way to acquire experiences, insights and contacts beyond campaigning, and to re-invent myself as someone who could work in business and politics.
It worked. I spent the next five years working as a consultant on social and environmental issues in the private sector, and became chair of SERA, the environmental group affiliated to the Labour Party. That in turn led to four years as Special Adviser at the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, to Environment Minister Michael Meacher MP from 2002-03 and then Secretary of State Margaret Beckett MP from 2003-06.
As Director of Green Alliance, I came home to the voluntary sector. The Masters programme has been an invaluable springboard for my different roles. Just as I had hoped, it has provided me with experiences, insights and contacts across sectoral boundaries. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fast-track route to making a difference.
