'In Conversation' Laura Hurren

'In Conversation' with Laura Hurren, BNI Executive Director for Central London

In the current COVID climate, it has never been more important to have a strong business network to fall back on in times of uncertainty, as part of my initiative to stay connected during these difficult times I chose to link in with Laura Hurren, BNI Executive Director for Central London. As the President of the BNI Holborn Chapter, I was curious as to how Laura has pivoted her focus to support the members of BNI in London to stay connected.

Laura shares with us, ‘As the BNI Exec Director for Central London my role has evolved over the past few weeks. I have always been focused on helping members build better businesses, and now more than ever my attention is on helping as many members as I can through this situation.

It has been vital for us to pivot our business model to support our network effectively in this current environment, we focused on rolling out the change in three phases:

Phase 1: Transition the BNI model online. All the groups in central London are fully operational online and members are active and engaged.  

Phase 2: Prepare and deliver training content, to provide much-needed support, educate, and help the BNI business community, using webinars and events, attracting some of the best keynote speakers. Our calendar is always full and there is something for everyone. 

Phase 3: Continue to build on these changes throughout the implementation period, to ensure we are stronger than ever for our members at the end of this.

My personal passion is giving back to the community in which we operate, as a Trustee of the BNI Foundation in the UK, we launched 'A Year’s worth of Giving in a Week' campaign, which is well under way. We are encouraging members to give an hour of their time to help and support with their time and their talent, to someone in their community. We hope we can raise 9,000 hours which equates to a year’s worth of giving in just one week. (watch this space)’

As the President of BNI Holborn Chapter, I was delighted to participate in 'A Year’s worth of Giving in a Week’ campaign with my fellow members of the BNI Holborn Chapter last week. I am very proud to announce, we celebrated a whopping 112 hours donated to the community last week and look forward to learning more about the overall results towards the end of this week.

If you are a business owner, professional or practitioner and are looking to connect with like minded people and build your network, please do reach out to Laura and myself to learn more about how BNI can help you.

Register to visit us next week