‘Women in Business’ is a phrase coined to the equality movement and marks a huge step-change in supporting female professionals around the world. Whether it’s Women in Finance, Women in Cyber or Women in Tech – it’s a term used to build a support network for professional women around the world and while it can be great, it’s not always used for good.
Dominated historically by the loudest voices, ‘Women in Business’ can be found plastered across stages at conferences, trending daily on LinkedIn and dished up alongside lip-service to serve organisations wanting to appear as more inclusive and unfortunately it’s working.. or, at least it did.
The overdone phrase is now met with public mistrust, frustration and even resentment mirroring the hijacking of the Feminism Movement that was once cheered and not ignored.
We’re on a mission to change that. Change the way the phrase is used and perceived by restoring its original purpose and use it for good.
Starting with the very women in our own network, we are using ‘Women in Business’ to engage, encourage, empower and inspire female professionals who have a voice but are being prevented from using it.
Our Having a Voice at the Table event series brings together the UK’s leading women from different business disciplines, colour codes, backgrounds, skill-sets, strengths, weaknesses and opinions about womanhood and just about everything else.
We don’t talk about inequality, diversity, talent attraction, ticking a box or discrimination – negative or positive discrimination. Essentially, we don’t discuss anything that ‘Women in Business’ events might often be associated with and instead bring powerful women together and encourage them to tell their stories.
Be it balancing motherhood with leadership, finding your authentic self and staying true to it, finding ‘me time’ or finding a mentor, we discuss how to use our downfalls as women to become more successful and so far, it’s been brilliant.
Over the course of two events we have heard from four exceptional women who shared their stories of leadership and womanhood.
Xenia Walters, Group CFO of SDL opened our first ever Women in Business event. She spoke about the power balance in the Board Room and at home with her husband a successful executive and two children who see them both as equal, she also spoke about building a work ethic aged seven and using your weaknesses as strengths. She stressed the importance of an Executive Coach to help you stop and reflect and spoke of having it all, as a myth.
Elona Mortimer-Zhika, CEO of IRIS Software Group joined Xenia at our first event and advocated the vitality of choosing meritocracy over positive discrimination, how it can often be lonely at the top and how as a leader who is also a mother, finding the balance between being great at work and great at home; and also great to herself, is a huge struggle. She also discussed how finding friends at the school gate was her saviour in balancing work and motherhood with ‘me time’.
Our second event which took place just this week saw CFO of the Ambassador Theatre Group, ShanMae Teo, discuss climbing the ranks through a heavily male-dominated Private Equity industry and using her current position to promote equality not just for women but for men too – encouraging her male peers and reports to do the ‘admin’, go to the doctors appointments and the school pick-ups because while helping him to be a better father, you’re helping a woman on the other side of the fence who gets to stay at work a little longer.
We also heard from Author and Executive Coach Joanna Kane who spoke about the wake-up call that changed her life. Working harder than anyone else, she believed to be a successful woman she needed to work tirelessly and became ill in the process – this she describes as the leading moment to the thing that changed her life, offered her a second career and gave her the inspiration to help other women move forward in their lives with more clarity, conviction and joy.
These events not only allow women who may be silently struggling to ask for help and resonate with the powerful speeches delivered by these four exceptional women, it also offers them the chance to interact with a group of passionate women under Chatham House Rule – a safe space to discuss challenges they may also be facing, what holds them back and what they are committed to changing.
Our interactive workshop allows these phenomenal women to truly self-reflect and ask themselves what is holding them back from an astounding year ahead and build a tool-kit to help them get there.
Two events, 80 women and a whole lot of positivity is the start to reclaiming the term ‘Women in Business’ and I’m confident we are making a dent in the professional world – a dent that is sure to empower women in business everywhere.
