Chris has been a valued member in growing the Movember initiative here at JLR for over 10 years

What is your role and how long have you worked at JLR?

I am a Lead Brakes Performance Attribute Engineer and have been at JLR since 2012. Although I was originally employed to work on brakes, I was asked to work in exhausts component delivery temporarily in SVO before the department formed their own brakes team in 2016.

Are you part of any JLR employee-led networks?

I try to get involved with a selection of the different networks to broaden my perspective. I am a member of GEN, REACH, Working Parents and SHINE to name a few. Although not strictly a network there are the Wellbeing champions and PULSE groups that I engage with too.

Tell us about your involvement with Movember and how has JLR supported this.

I started to do Movember in 2010. My pop had been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and I wanted to raise money for that cause. I have done it almost every year since then. Over the last few years and with the change in culture at JLR we have grown the ambitions for the campaign from humble beginnings as a few isolated teams to today’s global JLR coordinated activities. Within the last 2 years we have secured budget to use to create and make assets, run a conference with external organisations providing guest speakers, design, buy and apply decals (stickers) to fleet cars and organise for their touring of the UK sites. The board have also participated in photoshoots with us, having fun with stick-on moustaches and individually they have promoted the work we are doing on LinkedIn. Last year we raised over £29k for Movember which JLR match funded to nearly £60k. 

How do you manage your time between your day job and supporting Movember?

With difficulty! The end of October and the start of Movember is particularly busy for me and I have spent a lot of time in the evenings and weekends developing Movember plans, steering the coordination of our activities and managing various teams of volunteers around the business. I am fortunate in having a leadership team who understand the importance of wellbeing activities such as this, activities which truly Engage For Good. Ironically during October, I’m probably not paying as much attention to my own mental and physical health as I should in order to try and get the message to others and fund these vital causes. This year, I am both a workplace and community ambassador for Movember.

What’s next for you at JLR?

I expect to do a bit more travel with various projects to test cars normally in Gaydon but sometimes in Italy and other parts of Europe. I’m also hoping I can do a secondment to another department in the future so I can build further expertise in other areas of the business and bring that knowledge back to the brakes department.

Tell us something you’re really proud of achieving at JLR.

I like to see the products I have worked on out on the road being driven by customers or at motorshows and in the magazines. I am proud that over the years I have been at JLR I have gradually grown more and more of a network of friends and colleagues in different departments so that I normally know who to talk to in order to get things done. In the process I have also connected people and encouraged involvement with Movember such that we now have almost 800 members in our Viva Engage group and are raising awareness all over the world which extended to Brazil, Mexico and Nitra more this year.