A Level and Vocational Business students were excited to welcome BBC Breakfast’s Business Presenter, Steph McGovern, to the College this week who visited to tell them about her career path and background in business reporting.
The Business Studies department at Nelson and Colne College Sixth Form is a highly regarded and very successful department which has seen students progress to top universities and subsequently, to achieve truly outstanding careers. In order to give their students a well-rounded business education, which will set them up for their future careers, the department regularly invites industry ‘experts’ to the classroom and the Business Studies Team were thrilled when BBC’s Steph McGovern agreed to visit and speak with current students.
Steph McGovern is an award winning Business Presenter for the BBC, who has been working in financial journalism for more than 10 years. Her job as Business Presenter for the BBC Breakfast team sees Steph travel all over the UK to cover economic and business news. Visiting businesses large and small, from local dairy farms to large multi-million pound conglomerates, Steph interviews everyone from shop-floor workers under threat of redundancy to the Chief executives of FTSE 100 companies talking about their year-end profits.
The students were thoroughly entertained by Steph’s presentation. She talked about her early career in Engineering, where she managed to save Black & Decker over £1m on a design she created for their Leaf Hog product, winning her the award for Young Engineer for Britain. She went on to inform the students how she used her engineering and scientific knowledge, coupled with tenacity and good fortune to land her first broadcasting jobs, which helped her to get to where she is today.
Filled with funny stories about the things that can go wrong in live TV broadcasting and radio, Steph’s passion for business reporting struck a real chord with students. A Level student Ellis Lynch said, “The presentation from Steph was very enjoyable. I got a great insight into the lifestyle of a BBC reporter and what goes on behind the scenes, which we would never normally hear about. We discussed many things, from the performance of high street businesses to getting bitten by a pig whilst on location!”
