University of Westminster hosts What it Takes to be a Successful Leader

The ‘What It Takes’ series is targeted at current students and recent graduates, and features a range of exciting and innovative alumni speakers sharing their experience on an array of topics. The event also focuses on employability, personal and professional development. 

The What it Takes to be a successful leader event on 8 March featured a speaker who shared their insights into leadership based on their own journey to becoming an immigration human rights lawyer.

Alumnus Neveen Galal, a 2002 Legal Practice Pg Dip graduate at Westminster, is founder of Amnesty Solicitors, a UK immigration and human rights law firm. Her career has focused on fields including immigration, refugee and human rights law, representing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and victims of trafficking and slavery.

The talk included Neveen explaining how she had developed her own leadership style, and how she planned her own career path to reach a senior level in the legal sector within three years of graduating. She also addressed issues on dealing with and responding effectively to negativity or setbacks to encourage progress, rather than allow it to have a detrimental impact on personal and professional development.

Neveen was also recognised in Who’s Who of Britain’s Young Business Elite for being one of the youngest directors of a multimillion-pound company, where she also helped mentor and train graduates at the start of their career, as well as being named winner of the Outstanding Achievement Award as part of the Westminster Alumni Awards in 2021.

Approximately 65 students and graduates attended the event. One of the attendees said: “I really enjoyed the session, I gained a lot of information on what it takes to be a good leader and the presentation helped give me valuable advice, that I hope to apply when I get a job after graduation.”

Another audience member echoed the sentiment: “Neveen is clearly a very open and approachable leader, she used great language and tone particularly with all of the very different questions and experience in the room!”

Finally, another guest added: “I’m a mature student and from a refugee background, so listening to Neveen talk about the some of the successful lawyers coming from a refugee background will remain an inspiration to me!”

The next What it Takes event will be ‘What it Takes to Succeed in the Media Industry’ on 15 March.

Find out more about the University of Westminster’s Alumni services.