“Becoming Chartered led to a new me”

Tony Stonebridge CMgr FCMI loves tackling challenges head on, whether that’s skydiving, jet skiing or becoming a Chartered Manager with an Executive MBA, having had no prior qualifications. 

“I’m high energy, high impact,” says Tony. “I’ll typically run towards what people would run away from. I love to find a problem and solve it.” 

That attitude helped him pick himself up when he was made redundant from a warehouse manager role in 2013. “I knew I had to start and build again,” he says. 

Tony was soon joining Wickes and has since held multiple roles as he’s worked his way up various different teams. His initial plan was to move away from management, but after three months, he changed his mind. “I saw the potential and I wanted to get more involved,” he says. “Never did I think I’d end up on this journey.”

Walking in other shoes

He first came across the Chartered Manager accreditation and the CMI Level 5 Operations/Departmental Manager Apprenticeship when he was assistant general manager. He was considering how to support colleagues going through the apprenticeship process and decided the solution was to do it himself. 

“It dawned on me that walking in their shoes would help,” says Tony. 

He’d already had the idea in his head that he’d like to do an apprenticeship, and it ended up being a turning point in his career. “It changed the way I think and act and behave, whether professionally or personally,” he says. “It reshapes you as part of the process.” 

He was so inspired by the experience of completing Level 5 that he jumped straight into a Level 7 course.

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In the space of five years, Tony has completed the CMI Level 5 in Operations and Departmental Management; a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration; the CMI Level 7 Certificate in Strategic Management and Leadership Practice; and the Executive MBA at Aston University. He is now a Chartered Manager (Fellow). 

He says these have “collectively contributed to a new Tony with a different way of thinking and a different approach”. In meetings he has a deeper understanding of the conversations taking place. 

“I’m able to add value and to take the knowledge and the skills I’ve learned and put them in the workplace,” he says.

‘Values and principles to live by’

And while Tony’s had to work hard to achieve these qualifications in such a short time, he says it has been worth the sacrifice.