Kristien Turner (BSc International Business with Language, 2010)

If someone had told me, back in my International Business with Spanish lectures at Birmingham University, that my career would take me across six countries, two hemispheres, and into the heart of global leadership teams, I would never have believed it.

But that’s the beauty of an education from Birmingham, it doesn’t just expand your knowledge, it expands your sense of possibility. My University years were transformative, but one experience stands out above all: my study abroad year at ICADE University in Madrid. It was the first time I truly understood what it meant to build a life across cultures to learn in one language, think in another, and belong to both. That year ignited something that has shaped every chapter of my life since.

Since then, my career has taken me through Mexico City, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, New York, Miami and has also included big projects in India, China, and Poland. For 18 years at HSBC, I worked at the intersection of international marketing, talent, and culture, leading thousands of hires and building global service centres across continents.

And then Mexico changed my life again, this time in the most personal way. After a long, emotional adoption journey, my partner and I became parents to two beautiful children. Mexico stopped being an assignment and became home.

Launching TK Talent

After two decades shaping employer brands worldwide, I realised something simple and powerful: Precision hiring requires magnetic branding. Most companies lead with what they want. The best talent cares about what’s true, what’s human, and what’s possible inside the company.

That’s why I founded TK Talent to help organisations attract and grow talent through clarity, storytelling, data, and leadership behaviour not slogans.

A few lessons have become my north star:

• Top talent wants evidence, not adjectives.
• One shared story across HR, Marketing & Leadership changes everything.
• Behaviour is the brand. Leaders either amplify or break it.
• Global brands succeed when local teams add soul.
• Employer Brand isn’t a campaign, it’s a leadership strategy. From Siemens’ digital reinvention to Airbnb’s lifecycle redesign and Heineken’s EVP transformation, the best brands win because they align what they say with how they behave.

Standing again in a Birmingham lecture room last year, this time beside Achilleas Boukis to give a guest lecture, brought my journey full circle. I’ve been able to encourage students to embrace international experiences, trust their story, and see culture and belonging as superpowers in their careers.

TK Talent Group is my most exciting chapter yet. And it all started at Birmingham University where the world first opened up for me.