Students with IoD Student Membership Executive Rebecca Sharpe (centre) and Olga Lawson from Leadership Works (left).

Students from the University of Essex have become the first university student members of the Institute of Directors (IoD) in the East of England.

The partnership scheme aims to inform and educate the next generation of business leaders in the world of commerce and entrepreneurship. Through the scheme students will be helped to develop networks and connections and give them the tools to develop a business portfolio which will stay with them for the rest of their careers.

The 26 student taking part in the scheme are mostly taking business-related courses and will benefit from the many advantages of IoD membership including the opportunity to attend local and national IoD events, access to business gurus and an online information resource centre, tailor-made to the needs of future directors plus internship opportunities.

At the opening launch to formally welcome the students into the IoD, David Stanbury, Director of Employability at the University of Essex, said: “As one of the top research Universities in the UK, Essex is delighted to be working closely with one of the top employer organisations in the country - the IoD - to switch students on to employability.

Student membership offers a great way for our students to access top quality advice from leading business people that will help prepare them for success after graduation. Essex has a strong track record of nurturing budding entrepreneurs and we are sure this will only get stronger with support from the IoD.”

Tim Price, Chair of IoD Essex and Operations Director of Colchester-based Park City Consulting, said: “Introducing the IoD student membership programme to aspiring students at the University of Essex is a step towards ensuring that our future directors benefit from the best available resources and contacts at an early stage in their professional career. We are greatly looking forward, at IoD Essex, to welcoming these students into our branch; we see this as a great opportunity to foster relationships with the business leaders of the future.”

Information about the IoD:

• The IoD is a non-party political organisation with over 40,000 members in the United Kingdom and overseas.
• The IoD provides an effective voice to represent the interests of its members to government and key opinion-formers at the highest levels. These include ministers, constituency MPs, Select Committee members, senior civil servants and MEPs.
• The IoD’s Professional Development programmes provide specific board-level and director-level training and individual career mentoring programmes for organisations and individuals in all sectors of the economy.
• The IoD offers members a wide range of business services. It has business centre facilities at eleven UK locations, one in Paris and one in Brussels. It also provides conferences, networking events, issues-led guides and literature, as well as free business information and advisory services.