International Women’s Day (March 8th) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality that we still have a gender pay gap and under-representation of women in directorships is a shame.
The world has made unprecedented advances, but no country has achieved gender equality. Fifty years ago, we landed on the moon; in the last decade, we discovered new human ancestors and photographed a black hole for the first time.
Women make up half the population and in the UK labour market 9.31 million women work full-time, while 6.30 million work part-time. 40% of women in employment work part-time compared to 13% of men. The UK had the eighth highest female employment rate (70.1%) out of 28 EU countries in July-September 2018.
Choose to challenge
The IWD2021 theme is #ChooseToChallenge – a challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we’re all responsible for our thoughts and actions – all day, every day. We can choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. We can help create an inclusive world.
Whether they are scientists, farmers, sportspersons, business leaders, medical or military personnel there are many inspiring women we can look to for inspiration. These are our nominations:
Geoffrey Milton nominates – Christine Ourmieres-Widener of ZeroAvia, who has more than 25 years of operator management expertise in the commercial aviation market, recently with Flybe. She is passionate about aviation, travel, her family and fitness
Sneha Khilay nominates – Avani Modasia who has worked in the voluntary/community sector for over 30 years and held senior management posts in the sector, including ten years as CEO of Watford Council for Voluntary Services and CEO of Age Concern Harrow. Avani likes to go to the gym, travel and visit the theatre and loves reading.
Michael Moran nominates – Anne Fulton of Fuel50 where she is CEO. Anne has developed and implemented frameworks for leadership/high potential development and succession planning/actions – in small organisations and large.
Stuart Rudd nominates – Jess Starley, Operations Director at RTS responsible for delivering quality solutions to clients through the client services team. She admits to having an untidy desk from time to time and in her spare time enjoys days out with her young children.
Urvashi Desai nominates – Reena Dayal, an Author and leadership accelerator with The Collaborators, and co-founder of Amplenary and academy for entrepreneurs. Reena uses a blend of applied neuroscience, western leadership frameworks and ancient eastern techniques.
Women make the world go around and the more we can do to encourage girls and young women to be ambitious the better we will all be.
