Find Your Path

Lucy is the transport manager covering three depots and is responsible for managing the safe and cost-effective utilisation of all drivers and equipment within my locations, ensuring that the customer service requirements are fully met and in line with the business objectives.

She completed a degree in Business Management that lead her to the position however, this job needed a level 3 Certificate of Professional Competence for Transport Managers (Road Haulage) and hands on experience including: Previous experience in the transport industry to understand legislation and compliance, understanding of drivers’ hours regulations and an understanding of O licence processes and regulations.

Lucy started her career in logistics in 2019 at age 21 as a dispatch planner. She studied Business Management (BA) Hons at University and within her final year specialised in Operations. During this time, she was looking for work experience part time related to Operations. Through the university online job board, Lucy found that Oxalis was advertising for a part time dispatch planner. The part time job sparked her interest in logistics. Lucy then went on to a graduate scheme after university with Oxalis with different rotations around the business. This included field operations, central fleet team and an operations control role.

A highlight for Lucy’s career has been receiving her international CPC after completing the Certification of Professional Competence (CPC) international course.

Shelby arranges events for our members. This includes regional meetings, our Freight Services Awards, charity dinners, Young Forwarder Network socials and virtual events. Her role required a C grade or above in English and Math, basic IT skills. Her sister-in-law worked for Seetec, and she saw the job vacancy online and sent it to her.

Shelby built the following skills from her experiences in school such as good communication, time management, adaptability, and empathy.

She is motivated by getting opportunities to meet new people at different functions and events. She also loves that she can travel to different places in the country that she hasn’t been to before!

One of Shelby’s career highlights has been planning and attending our Freight Service Awards. We spent half the year planning everything, taking bookings, making sure everything was perfect, and then when the day came, it was really satisfying to see it all come together and all our guests enjoying themselves and even though I was working the whole day, it didn’t feel like it, it was fun!

Within BIFA, Brooke is responsible for the creation and distribution of all Member communications including social media, e-newsletters, and website updates, including industry updates and event promotion.

As she started as an apprentice, there were no formal qualifications that she needed prior to starting at BIFA. During her time here, Brooke has been working towards a Level 4 in PR & Communications.

Ever since her GCSEs, Brooke knew she wanted to go into digital communications, as the variety of the role always appealed to her. Brooke started looking online and came across the gov.uk apprenticeship website, which is where she found and applied for her current role at BIFA.

Whilst not being in the operational side of logistics, given the nature of her role, she is constantly surrounded by logistics, a world in which she never thought she would find herself. The best thing about Brooke’s role is the variety of tasks she undertakes on a day to day basis.

“I know it’s a bit of a cliché to say ‘no two days are the same’ but no other phrase describes my role as precisely as this. My role spans the entire team at BIFA so there’s no predicting what will come my way, but that is what makes my job so refreshing and exciting!”

The highlight that stands out the most in Brooke’s career so far would be the campaign behind the 2023 BIFA awards. She was solely responsible for the entire communications campaign which was an incredibly daunting task! The campaign itself is the most complex that BIFA runs each year, and she knew from the start that it would be a massive job. It combined communications, PR, and advertising and was something completely new to her.

Looking back, the campaign ran smoothly, and this is something that she is immensely proud of. Knowing that she was trusted by the team at BIFA to carry out the entire campaign herself, despite her junior level within the business, filled her with confidence.