Great leadership is rarely built in isolation; it is forged through shared experience, real accountability, and practical problem-solving. The new gdb Future Leaders Programme brings together ambitious managers and business owners from across the Gatwick Diamond region for a six-month, hands-on development journey.
Delivered face-to-face at the Crawley Innovation Centre, the course tackles the genuine commercial hurdles leaders face every day, from managing teams and financial strategy to emerging technology and stakeholder influence.
In this interview, we speak directly with Victoria Ramsden, who is leading the Future Leaders programme. Victoria is a Leadership specialist, Executive Coach and consultant working with ethical, responsible and sustainability-conscious business leaders to achieve greater impact.
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What is the Diamond Future Leaders Programme?
Yeah, I'm really excited about this. We've been working on Diamond Future Leaders for about a year, so it's great to see it finally come into being. We've launched this off the back of a need that was identified, with members consistently saying they're experiencing the same problem, so we're really pleased to be able to offer something which is genuinely unique to the Gatwick Diamond region.
Who is it for?
It's for high flyers, emerging talent in an organisation, first-time people managers and professionals who are taking on increased management and leadership responsibilities for the business.
That's a broad spectrum. Are there specific types of business it suits?
It is quite broad. We've said that businesses need to have a minimum of five staff, so they've got some delineation of roles and responsibilities, some sense of structure and process. But outside of that, we've not been too restrictive.
It's for businesses that have either gone through some internal change and are really needing to look at how they're operating, their efficiencies, the operational drag, maybe the friction and constraints they're dealing with. Maybe they've been through a period of rapid growth and need to stabilise and normalise, put in some structure and process. Or maybe they're even downsizing a little; they've grown too quickly and need to recalibrate, pivot and evolve. For all of those scenarios, Diamond Future Leaders is going to be perfect for them.
And the benefits for the people who make it on the course?
There are lots.
Firstly, it's delivered exclusively by gdb members for gdb members, so it really is a genuinely unique regional programme. There's nothing else that exists like that, with a real regional focus delivered by experts in the region. That means participants get the opportunity to network with other businesses and experts within the gdb membership, as well as with their peers, counterparts and other stakeholders, so it's extending the reach and breadth of gdb membership within the area.
They're also going to get really practical, applied tools and techniques they can deploy in real-life situations, for challenges or projects they're working on right now, plus access to proven leadership and management frameworks that are tried and tested and well respected in the area.
Because it's face-to-face, they'll get the opportunity to do some real in-person work, building their own stakeholder influencing and client relationship management skills, as well as boosting EQ, metacognition, critical thinking and decision-making. And the bit I'm really, really proud of is that it's aligned to the Chartered Management Institute professional standards, which gives it a credibility other leadership programmes don't offer.
It's truly unique. We've done a lot of market research on other programmes, and there aren't programmes like this that take proven theoretical techniques and put them into a genuinely practical, applied concept.
How will delegates feel different by the end of it?
This is one of the things that's really different about this programme: they get the opportunity to test out and learn the skills they're using as they go. It's not just turning up for a nice three-and-a-half-hour session, and then it's done. There are six sessions over six months, so they get to revisit things that came up earlier, engage in reflective learning and practice, and really integrate what they're learning into a live applied situation. There's also an individual project, so they can take everything they've learned and apply it to a particular context they're working in right now.
There's something special about learning in a cohort. How does that make this different?
That's really the key point, it's not just about learning information, it's about how you apply it and integrate it, how you change your behaviour in the moment. Most leadership and management training gives you a bunch of theoretical information that's interesting, but it doesn't translate into what you're actually grappling with right now: the behavioural issue you need to work on, where you're struggling with a problem or how you're approaching something you're tackling.
It's also about how you get different results out of your team, because you understand the mental blocks, the unconscious barriers, the default patterns and automatic behaviours your team is also encountering. That gives you different insight and perspective, so when you hit those problems in real time, you can draw on what you're learning from Diamond Future Leaders.
What makes you so excited about this programme?
At the fundamental root of it, there's a lot of rhetoric about leadership and management that's about strategy and execution. Most of it doesn't really focus on the human actually delivering it, and that's the real difference here. Leaders and managers are humans first, leaders and managers second. So a lot of what Diamond Future Leaders focuses on is really understanding the human; it's quite introspective and reflective, as well as giving perspective on what's going on for other humans, and that's where most leadership programmes don't go into that level of insight.
It's a personal passion project for me too, because most people don't take the time to really understand what's going on for themselves, what they really want, what they're seeking to achieve, what matters most in any given context. Diamond Future Leaders is going to start to generate insight around all of that.
What will people learn about themselves?
One of the key ones is imposter syndrome. I'm in a privileged position where I get to talk to business leaders all the time, and I can guarantee every human experiences some form of low confidence or imposter syndrome. So there's real value in understanding that nobody is uniquely flawed or uniquely challenged when they experience those kinds of confidence issues.
There's a misconception that when you move into a new role or take on leadership responsibilities for the first time, you should already know the answer and just get on with it. That's not good enough in business anymore. Learning how to be a good leader and manager is a discipline in itself; this is really about self-mastery. It's not good enough to just get on and wing it; that's a bit outdated now. This is about mastering a craft.
How do people sign up?
It's really easy. All you need to do is fill in the expressions of interest form, give us a little information about you, and we'll be in touch to get you booked on.
Is there a qualification period to make sure it's the right fit?
Not this time. We're going to be looking at eligibility more closely in future, but this is the first programme, the flagship programme, so this time we're not going to pick and choose who we think is appropriate. We've had a lot of interest, of course, but we really want people who are going to be committed, genuinely keen to be in the room, genuinely looking to learn from others and to develop in their own roles. That's the most important thing: showing commitment and investment.
What would you say to business owners with a good candidate on their team?
I'd say don't hesitate. Because this is the first cohort, there's a lot of interest in being part of shaping how it works going forward. We're also offering a special founder investment price for the first cohort only, £990 up front. If someone's thinking about it, I'd say do it now. Don't wait, because the price will be different and the programme will be different, and they might not get the opportunity to help shape it in future.
Your delegates are busy people. How do they fit this in?
It's a brilliant question, and I really want to empathise and acknowledge this is a genuine, real challenge. I'm very familiar with it, and I've worked with clients where it's a key issue.
What I'd say is, there's no perfect time. Sometimes there's genuinely not a great time, and there's a bit of discernment involved in navigating that, which is actually one of the capacities participants will cultivate on the programme. But this is really about understanding where the drag is, where the friction is, where the constraints are. There's a constant, perpetual need to feel busy, but being busy isn't the same as being productive and effective in the role.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is take a bit of time back for strategic planning and reflection, because those are the things that have the biggest impact on organisational performance and results, not the constant grind of being perpetually busy. Clients say it all the time, it's a mindset shift you need to make to be a leader and manager. The things you do in that role aren't the same as what you do as a professional without leadership responsibilities. The time to plan, to review, to observe what else is going on, that's the most important thing you can do as a leader. So honestly, don't hesitate; if that's the block, it's even more of a reason to be doing Diamond Future Leaders.
Diamond Future Leaders is a six-month, six-session leadership development programme run in person at Crawley Innovation Centre, delivered exclusively by gdb members for gdb members and aligned to Chartered Management Institute professional standards. The founder price for the first cohort is £990 (excl. VAT). To register interest, complete the expressions of interest form.
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