Carren Taun-Jackson

"I am a working mother who has been taught to work hard and fight for who you are and what you do. My parents are my role models who have always shown me to prove myself and believe in what i can achieve."

"I run a manufacturing factory that makes kitchen component's on an average week we produce 150k panels, 60k rails and 130k auxiliary parts. I am responsible for 90 men and 2 women with a labour budget of 2 million pounds per year.I have a leadership team that work with me to ensure that all the staff have the necessary training and skills to develop and operate efficiently and safely. I liase with senior management and support functions on a daily basis to discuss short term and long term objectives and strategies.We also have an apprentice program that I support and mentor to ensure that we have a pipeline of young talent in the business for the future growth of the company."

"I started my journey at Howdens on a packing line 21 years ago, I was only meant to be there for a few weeks until I found another job in hairdressing. The longer I stayed the more I enjoyed my job and proved how capable I was to organise the team that I was working with, I was encouraged to become a line leader.I later moved onto become a Group leader in packing. After I had a family I moved around site doing various jobs, working along side SAP team when we introduced SAP in 2009, Stock Control and Quality.I applied to be a Group leader in Production 10 years ago to progress with my career and push myself out of my comfort zone. Last year I was approached to take on the operations manager roll which is my current roll.My mum worked at Howdens and has always inspired me to push myself and progress to become part of the management team. "

"In my spare time i like to spend time with family and friends. I have a 14yr old daughter and we have 2 dogs that we love taking on long walks.I have recently starting jogging again with the local Fit mums group in Brough. I used to train to compete in triathlons and half marathons."

"My day starts at 7am and I read the handover from the night shift and I will follow up on any issues /actions. My team collect all the information from the previous day, health and safety, stoppages, breakdowns, quality issues and staffing that I report at the site meeting every morning with all the other operation mangers and senior managers.Our daily target is to ensure that we do not fail and delivery to our depots so we work closely with all other departments that we supply to and ensure they have all the panels they need for that day and the following day.I reply to emails throughout the day as well as dealing with any other issues that staff will come into the office about, this could be planning, maintenance, improvements, health and safety or personal issues.There are meetings that I attend daily with the engineering team to go through issues that we have on the lines and prioritise any work that we need carrying out on the production lines and ensure we can run efficiently the following shift."

"I left school with GCSEs and went onto go to Hairdressing College to complete my hairdressing qualification.Since I have worked at Howden, I have completed many courses, below are a few:Group leader trainingLeading a teamHealth and Safety NEBOSHManual HandlingILM ( The Institute of Leadership & Management)and many more!"