Golden tickets galore at annual meeting

Pictured (L-R): Sophie Poduval-Morrell, Hannah Ellis and Sarah Griffiths

Not one but two VIP golden tickets for the 2025 Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year Awards were given away at the recent Future Faces annual meeting.

Hannah Ellis, Area Support Manager for Lloyds Bank, scooped one of the tickets and Anna-Symone Bateman, Student Engagement Tutor at University College Birmingham, picked up the other, both of them securing VIP spots at the awards.

Throughout this year, Future Faces members will have the chance to uncover 10 golden tickets randomly hidden at Future Faces events. Five tickets have been found so far, with five left to go.

Winners will receive VIP access to the awards, ensuring a night of celebration and networking among the region’s top talent and industry leaders.

The awards are due to take place on 17 October 2025 at Birmingham’s ICC.

Read below to find out a little more about Hannah and Anna-Symone, their careers and what they are excited about for the upcoming 2025 awards.

Hannah Ellis:

1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your professional background?

I am a driver of growth through my nationwide Area Support Manager position for a large and growing Mid Corporate team at Lloyds Bank, where I have worked for eight years. My knowledge spans corporate banking spanning global corporates to SME including lending, asset management, financial, business, performance and risk management. I am an ambassador for regional growth demonstrated through my board member position at The Lifted Project and my involvement with Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.
I am also a winner of the Sir Bruce Pattullo Award for Highest average mark, a Chartered Banker, and a Future Face of Finance finalist.
 

2. What inspired you to pursue your current career or role?

I initially joined Lloyds Bank through the graduate scheme, I studied maths at the University of Sheffield prior to this and banking / finance felt like a great fit to my skill set. Since being at Lloyds, what has encouraged my career choices has been a desire to continue learning and an inquisitive / problem solving nature. I have held both client relationship management roles, but for the past three years I have been internally focused on growth, learning, development and improvements. I enjoy getting stuck into a project and delivering a tangible outcome.

3. What is the most rewarding part of your job or industry?

The most rewarding part of my role is identifying and solving a problem and seeing the benefit that this can have for other people. In the current economic situations it’s great to be a part of educating UK-based businesses and seeing them thrive.

4. How did you hear about the Greater BYPY Awards?

A number of years ago we had a Lloyds colleague win the Future Face of Finance award. We joined Future Faces as an organisation to increase our young people’s exposure and support their network growth. We last attended the awards in 2023 when I was a shortlisted for Future Face of Finance, it was a fantastic evening.

5. What does winning a gold VIP ticket to the event mean to you?

I’m thrilled to be able to attend the 2025 event, each year the awards get bigger and better and it’s a great night for our regional young professionals.

6. What are you most looking forward to at the awards?

The outfits! I love having an excuse to dress up and seeing what everyone else is wearing. I’ll be scrolling Vinted for the perfect dress from now on!

7. What’s one thing people might not know about you?

This year I am trekking 100km across the Sahara Desert for Crisis UK, to raise money to end homelessness. I have the target of raising £4k for the charity across the rest of this year. I will be completing the Trek alongside 90 colleagues and with Lloyds Bank matching our fundraising, we should be able to donate c. 750k to Crisis UK.

As part of this fundraising, Future Faces as an organisation have kindly donated a year’s membership for me to raffle to young professionals in the region. This will officially be launched at one of our upcoming events, but if you are interested in membership this could be your chance to win it for a small charity donation!

8. If you could describe your professional journey in one word, what would it be?

Exciting.

9. Why do you think events like BYPY Awards are important for young professionals?

As a region we have a lot of awards across different sectors which young professionals might get a seat at if they are lucky / if someone cancels / if there is a spare spot /… With the GBYPY Awards young professionals are the majority and all the awards are won by young professionals across all sectors. This is unique and it gives us a place to be celebrated with peers. When an organisation buys tickets, it shows the support they have for their future leaders and this is important for job satisfaction and retention of talent.

10. What do you hope to gain or learn by attending this year’s event?

New dance moves to add to my repertoire? Hopefully new connections across the region and an appreciation for what the young professionals at the awards have achieved, I think it’s very motivational seeing what other people are doing and how this can be replicated.

Anna-Symone:

1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your professional background?

I currently work at University College Birmingham as a Student Engagement Tutor where my role is to support students across all three/fours levels of their degree. My professional background so far has seen me mainly work in Higher Education and with young people, supporting them to use resources to achieve their best.

2. What inspired you to pursue your current career or role?

Inspiration to pursue this career came whilst I was studying my Psychology and Business Degree and using the knowledge and skills I had gained to understand people in the real world. We all face challenges at different times of our lives, and I wanted to be a positive mentor to encourage others that they could overcome/work with these challenges.

3. What is the most rewarding part of your job or industry?

The most rewarding part is being a part of a student’s journey or sometimes just hearing about their journey. Generally, a lot of my role is dealing with the issues that arise but seeing how far students have come after they have dealt with issues is very rewarding.

4. How did you hear about the Greater BYPY Awards?

I first heard about the BYPY awards when my sister was being nominated for it. She then went on to win the award in her category and it was such an amazing event!!

5. What does winning a gold VIP ticket to the event mean to you?

I went to the event last year, and it was full of good vibes. I was very moved and inspired by the nominees and the winners’ stories and actions, so it means a lot to go again and be surrounded by other young people who are making amazing contributions to their respected fields

6. What are you most looking forward to at the awards?

Mainly just hearing what others have achieved and being around other young people who are doing well. You never know who you will meet at events like this, and maybe new connections will be formed or if not that, just being around good energy.

Pictured (L-R): Sophie Poduval-Morrell, Anna-Symone Bateman and Sarah Griffiths