With International Women’s Day last month, it made sense to look at the influence that women are having on start-up businesses all around Leicester. Marsha Quailey, Executive Consultant at Concannon Connection shared her thoughts.
First, we wanted to look at how Sandra Pollock has changed the awards landscape with her East Midland’s Women’s Award (EMWA.) Sandra’s is a career that has spanned nearly 3 decades and taken her all across the globe from Europe to the Middle East, to South Africa and over to the Caribbean. Based in Leicester, Sandra has made it her life’s mission to empower women to thrive in business and life.
In 2010, Sandra took over as chairperson at The Women in Management UK (WIMUK) network and within 3 years managed to quadruple their membership all across the country, empowering and supporting hundreds of businesswomen along the way. This is just one of many stellar achievements that dot her very impressive resume.
Another amazing woman in the Leicester business world is Sue Grogan. Sue’s company Joined-Up Working – focuses on working together with other businesses trying to help their employees who are struggling with taking care of their relatives. A simple business concept, beautifully executed. Sue’s relentless dedication to her goal of helping people resulted in her winning the prestigious category “Outstanding Woman in Care Services” at the 2019 East Midlands Women’s Awards (EMWA.) This was a fantastic and well deserved recognition for all of the people that Sue has helped with Joined-Up Working.
There are so many courageous businesswomen out there, one of them is Katie Neeves. Katie has made it her life’s mission to frame the transgender narrative into a positive, yes even, cool story! Her organisation Cool2bTrans helps people who may be struggling to cope with their gender identity by offering positive role models and a game plan that helps people with their transition.
The transgender community has come a long way in the last decade, but there is still a lot of work to be done! One of Katie’s main goals is to reach out to the broader public and show how transgender people are not only “normal” people but can actually enrich whatever community they belong to.
From her popular blogs, YouTube videos, public speaking engagements and transgender awareness courses, Katie has had quite the spotlight on her and she is wanting to use her status as a media personality to raise more awareness for the cause. Transgender people often still face discrimination at work and by being outspoken about this, the NHS has started to listen. This March, the National Health Service is hosting a conference on Trust Equality & Diversity in Leicester and Katie has been invited to be the keynote speaker.
All in all, we hope this piece has given a bit of insight into the wonderful world of women in business. Incidentally, all of the women showcased in this article, are members of Concannon Connection.
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