WomenInLeadership
Leading ladies pave the way to success Herts Chamber staged a Women in Leadership lunch on 14 March for more than 80 women to launch its new Women in Leadership Initiative — and was upstaged itself by its two guest speakers. After an excellent Marriott Hanbury Manor lunch — with pudding as colourful as it was calorific — Yolanda Rugg rose to introduce the philosophy behind the Women in Leadership launch.
Her lesson number 2: to be noticed in a company, take yourself out of your comfort zone. You’ll surprise yourself with what you achieve – with a sense of humour!
Gender diversity liberates career options, and young girls could and should seriously consider previously established masculine sectors: construction, engineering, agriculture, IT and science, among others. The two guest speakers demonstrated why.
She moved back to Scotland with the company in a marketing and PR role. After a while, recognising the glass ceiling for what it was in the industry (then), she applied for a role with Saatchi and Saatchi — twice. She had the
Nora Senior, President of the British Chamber of Commerce, began with a grim statistic: just three per cent of career women have their career goals written down, and only 10 per cent have ever expressed them aloud. When she was 10 years old, after a school visit by a local businesswoman, she wrote down her career goal: by the time she was 30 she would be a managing director — clueless about what it was or entailed.
Her lesson number 1: write down your career goals, keep them visible. With a degree in languages and some timeserving in France, Germany and Brussels, she realised marketing was a good career entry point for her. The only job at the time was in construction. As all employees in the firm, irrespective of their role, had to undergo building training on site, she convinced the sceptical construction owner she could handle the environment. She was given six months’ probation and, as the first woman to work for the company, wasn’t expected to last the course. At the end of the trial, the general manager conceded that a woman on the team significantly improved the team’s productivity. Today Nora is still a dab hand at roof tiling, cementing and laying bricks. And a lot else besides.
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wrong skills, but the right attitude. She eventually landed the role and learned hard and fast.
Her lesson number 3: when you love something, of course you’re going to be successful. She had just begun to move up the career ladder when she was told that Saatchi’s PR business was struggling; the management decision was to close down. Such was her confidence in the team there, that she took a risk, and talked management into giving her a six month’s trial leading the company. Inside that period she turned around the business around, making a small profit. In her first year, it made £55,000 profit and in two years turned over just under £2m. She became the youngest MD of a plc in the UK at the time — realising her childhood dream.
Her lesson number 4: get the team working, and get rid of people not pulling their weight. Nora’s next aspiration was to build her own PR firm. Knowing nothing about setting up an enterprise, she approached her local Chamber of Commerce for support, advice and introductions. She grew her business – many construction and property clients – and gained new accounts: Coca Cola, Microsoft and Glenmorangie.
Her lesson number 5: beware of people who are ‘drains’; they sap your energy. Manage them out of your business. Her smart move was a merge with a global PR firm Weber Shandwick. After two years she was appointed Managing Director Scotland and is today Chairman UK Regions and Ireland as well as non executive roles as Chair, Scottish Chambers of Commerce and also President, British Chambers of Commerce.