Celebrating our colleagues

Mojoko Noah

Position: Team Manager, HR Business Partnering
Department: Human Resources
Division: Chief Executive
Length of service: 1 year, 2 months

My interest in HR began when I had a conversation with the Personnel Manager at Jane Norman, the retail store I was working at as a Branch Supervisor. After several discussions with her, I was inspired to go back to university and I decided to study Retail and Product Management at Roehampton University. In my final year, I chose HR modules and began to apply for HR roles with the top retailers of that time. 18 months after graduating, I was offered a role as a HR Administrator for British Home Stores (BHS) at the head office in Marylebone. This was my first role in HR and ultimately started my career journey in Human Resources.

Since then I’ve worked for a music and publishing company, Universal Music Group, as HR Coordinator. During my time here the company supported me in my development and agreed to pay for my HR qualifications (CIPD), so I worked full time during the day and studied part-time in the evenings for several years in order to obtain my postgraduate in HR management. I loved the culture and the team, but after three and half years, I felt ready to move and gain more career experience and accepted a new role with SThree Management, a global recruitment company as HR Adviser specialising in compensation and benefits. I worked for SThree for about 2 years but during the recession in 2010 the HR department was streamlined and as a result, my position was made redundant.

I was fortunate to secure a role as HR Adviser working for Creative Environmental Networks, an energy saving systems company, after 3 months of joining the company I was promoted to HR Manager. Subsequently just under a year later I was promoted again to Group HR Manager for Climate Energy Group, private equity backed energy company, working across southeast and southwest England until October 2015, when the group went into administration.

After this role, I spent several years working on an interim basis as HR Manager for different organisations in different sectors until I joined Southwark Council in August 2019.

I chose Southwark Council because my entire HR career had been within the private sector and I wanted a change and move into a different sector. The opportunity to work for a large organisation like Southwark, which is multi-site and with a wide range of stakeholders such as unions made it really appealing. Additionally, my job was a new role within the HRBP team so this was a great opportunity for me.

My experience at Southwark has been really positive so far and I hope that this will continue. The best aspect about my role is the fact that it gives me the opportunity to develop and maintain relationships with key stakeholders including directors, heads of services, business managers, the TU’s, staff and colleagues within HR and other departments. I also enjoy the fact that no two days are the same and do not have a typical day in my role.

My greatest achievement to date has been the fact that my proposal “shine a light” has been approved by HR SMT and key groups within the Council. This is small but a significant achievement that I am proud of.

I would like to see a real commitment that will ensure everyone within the Council is given equal opportunities to develop and become the best that they can be.

I am passionate about using my professional skills to make a real difference, as a professional volunteer I work directly with school’s leadership teams to make a lasting impact on the future outcomes of young people’s future by helping schools connect with the world of work. I am also a Trustee for Ark Community charity and a member of several professional networks including CIPD and #BlackandBrilliant.

Page last updated: 20 August 2021