Fiona Price is Head of Process at Biffa and currently on the Level 7 Senior Leader MBA apprenticeship at Ashridge. We sat down with Fiona to find out all about her journey so far.

Hi Fiona, you’re Head of Process at Biffa. Could you tell us a bit about your journey to get there? 

Hello, yes sure. After graduating from St Andrew’s University, I went into financial services as a graduate trainee and spent 17 years working for the likes of Lloyds, HBOS, etc. I started off in customer service and then went into specialising more on process. Process became the area that I suppose became my niche. I launched my own consultancy but found it wasn’t particularly conducive to having a young family at the time because it was quite a lot of travelling and visiting clients in different locations. I joined Biffa in a process role just over nine years ago, and I’ve progressed from there.  

What do you oversee in your role today? 

Today, I’m Head of Process at Biffa. I look after everything to do with process governance and continuous improvement, process framework and methodology. It’s really interesting because I get to be involved across many areas of the business. I get a great global viewpoint of the business from all angles and I get to see where the strategy’s going and where the business plans are taking us from all those angles as well. So it’s a really interesting role to be in. 

What made you choose to pursue an MBA apprenticeship? 

I’d wanted to do an MBA for years but was always waiting for the ‘right time.’ And then I sadly lost my father. He and I shared a passion for learning. So it was at that point, I decided: ‘Do you know what? There’s never a good time to do these things.’ The reality is that point never really comes. There’s always something that’s taking up life. So, you know, if you think it’s important, you’ve just got to go for it. 

And how has the learning experience been? 

It’s just been brilliant because I think being slightly later on in my career and having a lot of experience under my belt, I’ve really been able to apply the learning that the MBA gives you and put it straight into practice. I have a 360° perspective; I can analyse backwards, apply it currently and going forwards as well. It’s been just brilliant and I’ve loved getting my head buried back into learning again. I’m in my happy place!  

Have you found the on-the-job aspect tough to manage? 

I have a very supportive boss who’s brilliant when it comes to learning opportunities and supporting people’s growth and has been absolutely fantastic throughout my time at Biffa.  

What’s been a highlight of the MBA apprenticeship for you? 

Our Change module came at a point where our operating model at Biffa had changed and my boss had changed for the first time in nine years. The timing was just so lucky because it helped me with some tools at a point of going through quite major changes in my personal-professional circumstances. And I was able to extend that out to help the teams around me. Going through that and recognising how as a leadership team we could take our wider function through that change that we wanted to make. It was hugely useful and helped me through those changes and hopefully made a difference to others within the broader teams and functions as well.

What are the challenges within your industry that you’ve been able to address? 

The Sustainability module was particularly relevant to our business, as you can imagine, so that was an excellent opportunity to really look into that and understand it in more detail and bring it back to the company in terms of what we do internally. Additionally, you have the sustainability piece and how you talk about it and implement your own agenda. But actually what was also really valuable was bringing more information to people in terms of the UN goals and some of the more subtle aspects of sustainability that are being discussed. Some of those things are known within the specialist areas of our company and within certain management roles. But this enabled us to share more with our people more widely.  

How does your cohort work together, being from diverse industries and sectors? 

We’ve got a really strong cohort within the group. When you have such a diverse mix, it really just hammers home how much synergy there is. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the NHS or public services or a fashion company. Whatever company or background, you all face the same business challenges. And so it’s great that you’re able to kick the tyres on all of that together and pool your experience and expertise. 

What have you implemented with your team from the apprenticeship? 

Personal impact has been a big one. I’ve done a lot of work with my team now on their personal impact because they’re relatively senior people leading the project teams that they support. So encouraging them to work on their personal impact and fostering and nurturing that has been really important to me. 

 Any unexpected benefits?  

Another great opportunity has been getting insight into areas of the business that I don’t usually get involved with. For example, marketing. The module and assignment on marketing was great because I was able to discuss and share ideas with our marketing director, which I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do. So, I think it enables you to get out and about and meet far more stakeholders within your business and increase your network and therefore increase some of the opportunities that become available to you as well. 

Thank you so much for sharing your story Fiona and all the best for the rest of your MBA!