Leadership & management development

Vimbai Zendera

Media · Sport · Transport · Public sector
Vimbai Zendera

Welcome — I'm glad you're here. Have a proper look at the work, and do say hello if any of it is useful to you.

Introduction

Fifteen years across recruitment, talent and leadership development.

A leadership and management development professional working across media, entertainment, sport, transport, utilities, and the public sector. I specialise in designing and delivering development programmes that work — not just in the room, but in the way people lead the day after.

My work operates across the full leadership spectrum, from early careers through to senior leaders, and draws on deep experience of what it actually takes to build capability in complex, high-performance environments.

Where to go next
Work

The roles, and what each one built.

Fifteen years across recruitment, talent and leadership development — from welfare-to-work and transport through to Sky Group.

Known for
  • Designing and rebuilding leadership programmes from the ground up — including the Empower Management Programme at Sky, delivered to over 600 managers and nominated for a Leadership Excellence Award
  • Facilitating at scale across high-profile environments — having worked directly with over 1,000 leaders at Sky alone, across Sky Sports, Sky Studios, and Group functions
  • Bringing a rare grounding to development work — including early career experience in welfare to work, which created a deep understanding of what leadership decisions actually cost the people on the receiving end
  • Operating at the intersection of people, culture, and organisational performance — with a track record across graduate programmes, diversity initiatives, early careers, and senior leadership development
  • Seeing the patterns beneath behaviour — and creating the conditions for leaders to see them too
Career
2023 — Present

Manager — Learning & Leadership Development

Sky · Sky Group
Management development programme360 feedback · c.4,000 leadersLeadership insight & reporting
Detail
  • Own the end-to-end delivery and evolution of the Empower Management Programme, running two cohorts a year for c.160–190 leaders per cohort — workshop delivery, participant engagement, platform coordination, evaluation and reporting
  • Led the redesign and enterprise deployment of Leader Lens 360 into Workday, extending access to c.4,000 leaders
  • Co-designed the Believe in Better Leadership Academy, creating a more connected leadership development experience across Sky
  • Led the pilot of Better Conversations, supporting managers to build confidence in everyday leadership conversations
  • Leadership insight and reporting lead for the team, developing Tableau reporting used in Executive and Senior Leadership discussions
  • Facilitate leadership and management workshops across coaching, feedback, performance management, psychological safety and communication
  • Co-led a cross-People learning needs analysis, bringing together People Survey insights, stakeholder feedback and leadership data to identify capability priorities
2021 — 2023

People Operations Development Manager

Sky Sports, Sky Sports News & Sky Studios
Early careers programmes29 participants developedOutreach & inclusion
Detail
  • Led three intakes of the Sky Sports Content Academy, supporting cohorts of school, college and university leavers entering the business
  • Managed and developed 29 early careers participants across graduate, internship and academy pathways — pastoral support, performance guidance and development opportunities
  • Partnered with Sky's central Early Careers team to align programme delivery, talent pipelines and outreach with organisation-wide objectives
  • Supported diversity and inclusion initiatives including Women in Football and the 10,000 Black Interns programme
  • Coordinated work experience, outreach and community engagement to broaden access to careers in media and sport
2021

Talent Acquisition Lead Contract

Voneus Broadband
End-to-end recruitmentWorkforce planning
Detail
  • Led talent acquisition through a period of organisational growth, managing end-to-end recruitment across technical and corporate functions
  • Partnered with leaders on workforce planning and talent requirements
  • Developed sourcing strategies and talent pipelines to support growth
2018 — 2021

Talent Development Manager

LondonEnergy
Multi-site talent strategyDegree apprenticeship launchManager training
Detail
  • Partnered with senior leaders and HR Business Partners on recruitment, succession planning and workforce capability across seven operational sites
  • Strengthened graduate and early talent pipelines through psychometric assessment and onboarding improvements, and introduced the organisation's first Degree Apprenticeship in partnership with the University of Hertfordshire
  • Developed university and diversity-focused partnerships to improve access to talent and support representation goals
  • Delivered recruitment and development training to managers and leaders, supporting people and culture initiatives linked to Great Place to Work accreditation
  • Built relationships with hiring managers, universities and external talent partners, strengthening pipelines and reducing reliance on external agencies
Earlier career

Recruitment, HR and Talent roles

MAPP Limited · Chiltern Railways · media, travel and shared services
In-house recruitmentATS implementationProcess redesign
Detail
  • Internal Recruitment Manager at MAPP Limited and Recruitment Advisor at Chiltern Railways, alongside earlier HR, recruitment and talent roles across media, travel and shared services
  • Implemented recruitment technology and applicant tracking systems including Workday and EasyWeb, supporting adoption, process redesign and manager training
  • Developed recruitment toolkits and guidance for hiring managers, improving consistency across recruitment and onboarding
  • Streamlined recruitment and assessment approaches in operational environments, improving efficiency and candidate experience
  • Built direct sourcing strategies and talent pipelines, reducing reliance on external agencies
Qualifications
Associate Member, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) — since 2015
BSc Management, University of the West of England — 2006–2010
Thomas International PPA · SHL · DISC · Lumina Splash · Workday · Cornerstone · Tableau
In the room

The work, and what it does the day after.

Most of my work is delivered at scale. The Empower Management Programme is the clearest example — a leadership programme for new and emerging managers, run across multiple cohorts and measured every time.

Leadership development for new and emerging managers · Sky

The Empower Management Programme

9 / 10
average likelihood to recommend, consistent across every cohort
3.5 → 4.3
leadership confidence, before and after (out of 5)
4.7 / 5
facilitator expertise
600+
managers supported

Verified from participant feedback across cohorts, December 2024 – March 2026. Nominated for a Leadership Excellence Award.

In the room

What people say about the sessions themselves.

A great vibe by Vimbai, good to meet other managers, felt like a safe place. Clear, easy to follow deck.

EMP participant

Vim always engaging and I always thoroughly look forward to the sessions.

EMP participant

Great balance between encouraging questions and feedback whilst also promoting psychological safety.

EMP participant
Across the topics

And what people take back to the job.

I particularly enjoyed his personable style and the emphasis on using our 16 personalities knowledge to better communicate with our DRs in particular scenarios.

Understanding Yourself & Your Leadership Style

He brings the content in every session to life. I like how there are practical examples that I can take away and use in my role rather than vague common sense type suggestions.

Feedback & Difficult Conversations

The session was well laid out and gave great practical tips I can implement right away.

Manager as a Coach

Good, practical advice and guidance and more relevance to my role than previous sessions.

Feedback & Difficult Conversations
Beyond the programme

Facilitation, panels and early-careers work across Sky and beyond.

Recording the Believe in Better Leadership Academy podcast
Recording the Believe in Better Leadership Academy podcast, on better conversations — made for Sky's leadership population.
Delivering a session on adaptive leadership
Delivering a session on adaptive leadership for the Global Commerce Manager Excellence Programme.
Hosting the Sky Sports inclusion update
Hosting the Sky Sports inclusion update.
An Empower Management Programme workshop
An Empower Management Programme workshop, mid-session.
The Content Academy graduation
The Content Academy graduation — marking eleven graduates through to completion of the programme.
An early careers outreach session with Badu Sports
An early careers outreach session with Badu Sports, alongside Sky Sports News presenter Mike Wedderburn.
A separate project

The View From the Middle.

Alongside my work, I write The View From the Middle — an exploration of the leadership imprint: the gap between what a leader intends and what their team experiences.

The project

Everyday leadership, written so a manager can recognise themselves in it.

Not a framework and not advice. Stories drawn from the ordinary situations managers actually find themselves in — written to be recognised, and to be useful as a vehicle for a better conversation.

Visit viewfromthemiddle.co.uk →
Why it exists

The middle is where leadership is both given and received.

Most leadership writing is addressed either to the people at the top or to the people being led. Far less is written from the seat in between — where a manager carries a decision they did not make to a team who will feel it, and is held responsible for both ends of it.

The site is being built quietly and will open when it is ready.

Contact

Get in touch.

If something here is relevant to your work, I would welcome the conversation. Email is the surest way to reach me; my CV and LinkedIn profile are below.

Vzendera@hotmail.co.uk
Connect on LinkedIn Download CV