Sunita - Group PR Manager and a Momentum Participant, gives an insight about the Induction for the 2008 Momentum intake....

Day 1

This day really set the tone for the rest of the week as it was full of opportunities to get to know my fellow participants better as well as learning more about the challenges and exciting opportunities that we have ahead of us in our careers. The 12 Momentum 2008 participants met at breakfast and the group, with no less than seven nationalities present, really embodied that rich diversity of experience, culture and knowledge that Momentum represents. The group was a mix of internal candidates, recent joiners and participants who were yet to have their first day at the Pru. I fell into the recent joiners group having already spent a month getting to grips with the business.

We were visited by Stephen Whitehead, Priscilla Vacassin and Tidjane Thiam all of whom gave an overview of their functions as well as an insight into their careers and experiences – a true privilege. The day also provided an opportunity for our first group exercise – a case study set by M&G who had come in to talk to us about the business. The exercise not only gave us the chance to work in teams with each other, it also allowed us to really get to grips with the M&G business - a particularly challenging and rewarding task for those of us without a finance background!

Day 2

Today, Nigel Clark – Regional Director, Finance, PCA, - gav e us an overview of finance in life insurance, providing some clarity to some of the ways we measure our business and performance. Nigel also took us through the business in Asia, including another case study which, once again, forced us to think carefully about the business and dive deeply into the issues it faces. After lunch we were visited by Steven Haasz - Managing Director of Corporate Solutions at Prudential UK - who gave us an in-depth insight into the UK business, the challenges it faces and its capabilities. He invited us to work in groups to come up with hypothetical solutions to the challenging and far-reaching question "How well is Prudential UK placed to meet these challenges and become the provider of choice?"

What I loved about the case study element of the day was the incredibly privileged and unique opportunity to receive feedback from our speakers on our ideas and conversations – their comments reflected the time and thought that the speakers had taken to really listen to us – for which we were all extremely grateful.

Days 3 & 4

The weekend was spent in a seminar working on our presentation and communication skills. This was a chance to hold a mirror up to our quirks and areas for improvement - a real eye-opener for me! We came away with a set of tools that we could apply to both formal presentations but also our day to day communications with our immediate teams. It helped me to understand better the way I can work with others.

Days 5 & 6

We were joined by the 9 participants of the first Momentum cohort at the end of the weekend. This brought yet another layer of diverse experiences to the group helping add a fresh perspective to the group exercises that were to come. We spent the next two days learning about business strategy, including case studies that were worked on well into the evening. We finished those two days of more intense study with a vodka-tasting masterclass which provided some light relief and a chance to get to know each other in a less formal setting than case studies and group exercises – just as important for building relationships!

Days 7 & 8

For the final two days, we handed over to cohort 1 who gave presentations on their roles and responsibilities in the various parts of the business – they also gave us their top tips or lessons learnt from their year both in terms of their work and advice on getting the most out of Momentum. The presentations highlighted, for me, the diversity across our business. There are so many different opportunities to take; this was just a snapshot into 9 employees’ areas of business and what they do on a day to day basis but it really illustrated how we all fit into this organisation and the valuable contribution that everyone makes across all roles, business units, teams and territories.

I have not been able to cover off every presentation, speaker and teacher that visited us throughout the week but I hope these highlights have provided an idea of my personal experience. I felt that having been in my role prior to induction, albeit for a brief period of time, meant that I could put into practice some of my new knowledge as soon as I returned to work. If I could sum up in one word the feeling I was left with at the end of the week it would be ‘excited’: excited about the conversations that took place both with our speakers and within the Momentum group over dinner and drinks; excited about the overwhelming sense of the enormity of opportunities that lie ahead and excitement, along with gratitude, that I'm being given the chance to learn the tools that will help me seize those opportunities.