Inspirational (women) speakers!

Hello all!



Sian again.....this time braving the blog with a more personal entry after being really inspired last night.....



I wasn't quite sure what to expect at the 'Graduate Women's Network' event which a few of us MBA women headed over to yesterday.... The GWN holds events once a term but no one I know had been before and I have to admit that sometimes I do wonder if women only events simply set us apart as a 'minority group', separate in some way to everyone else, and therefore make our lives as professional women harder rather than easier. However last night's focus was on women working in traditionally male dominated industries which I thought was an opportunity not to be passed up.



The guest speakers were Anne Ridgeon, the Chairman of the Ridgeons Group, the Cambridgeshire region's largest independent builders' merchants and Dr. Sue Jackson, a Governing Body Fellow at Lucy Cavendish... It would take too long to relate the huge range of subjects they covered but both talked to us in a very personal way about their lives and how they had got to where they are today and were really fascinating to me so I just thought I'd share with you some very brief highlights...



Sue Jackson was from a background I can't even begin to understand which seemed to primarily involve a lot of welding which was impressive in itself! What I found more amazing about her though was that she hadn't in any way found it an issue to specialise in such a traditionally male field (apart from being asked at her first job interview what would happen if she met a man who wanted to move to another city and having to reassure the interviewer that she currently had no one in her sights) and the sheer range of different professional (if often welding related) experiences she had had throughout her life, very much balancing a desire to work as continuously and in as fulfilling a way as possible with travelling alongside her husband for his career and raising children. To name just a few of her many activities she has moved from working in the welding industry to writing for a metallurgy publication to being a research fellow at Lucy Cavendish to working with the Cambridge Environmental Initiative. I also found it fascinating, as an MBA psyching herself up for assessment centres and gruelling interviews over the next few months, that in her whole career she only seemed to have actually had about 3 interviews, the rest of her career moves being through invitations or suggestions from contacts to move into a new area.....as someone whose major career opportunity to date was as a result of meeting someone in a lift this gave me a lot of hope!



Anne Ridgeon was equally amazing though in a very different way. What most interested me was that she was accepting of and seemingly had come to terms with the idea that it may not be possible to be an outstanding career professional, a mother and be the best ever baker of cakes all at once. As I, and I think many other MBA women, have grown up thinking that we should be aspiring, and able, to do it all this was a little demoralizing but reassuring at the same time..... Her focus instead was very much on knowing yourself and your skills very well and being realistic about what you can achieve but at the same time striving for excellence and to do something that you really love doing. She also spoke to her feeling that you should have a clear idea always where you want to end up professionally (definitely put into context by the fact she has been preparing for her whole life to be the 4th generation of the Ridgeon family to chair the Board).



There's so much more that I could say but sadly Corporate Finance beckons and so to close just to say....it really was incredibly inspiring to hear from two such different women, both hugely successful and real role models but who had had completely different lives, and made me feel really excited about the careers we all have ahead of us. It did also make me think though (not for the first time in the last couple of months) what a missed opportunity it is that we so often only hear from female leaders speaking at these events for women when actually they are interesting as people and professionals and not just as women...
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Comments

1 Response to "Inspirational (women) speakers!"

Jen said... 21 November 2008 at 11:04

Sian! This is so great! Makes me regret leaving early to go to the Business Modelling review... sigh.


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