There are over 3 million women resident in London, of which just under half make up 44% of London’s workforce, and yet research shows that we continue to be proportionately under-represented in managerial and senior roles as well as, on average, earning less than our male counterparts. More and more businesses are now implementing programmes and initiatives around gender strategies to address this imbalance, but what are women doing for themselves? On 28th January, CWN hosted a panel event jointly with the Ernst & Young Women’s Network at the Ernst & Young offices, More Place, to discuss how women have helped themselves and their responsibility to other women in enhancing career development and maximising success.

The event was chaired by E&Y’s Anne Freden (pictured right), head of the E&Y Women’s Network, with a panel comprising Elizabeth Hesketh, Director of Talent Attraction and Development EMEA from Standard & Poor’s, Kath Barrow, Ernst & Young audit partner, and Helen Cook, leader of IBM’s UK Women’s Leadership Team. In attendance were over 100 women, a mixture of CWN and E&Y Women’s Network members.

All panellists agreed that it was fair for women to help facilitate career paths of other women, though not to the extent of making women dependent on that help. Helen Cook commented that women’s career options could be perceived to be limited as, biologically, women would have to take time off to have children – she stressed that women returning to work post-maternity leave would have to be very clear with themselves as well as with their employers as to their role on return, as well as cognisant of the risks to take in order to progress their careers. Elizabeth Hesketh expanded this point by noting that women in the vanguard should, at the very least, create a bridge for other women to follow.

Kath Barrow raised the point that the task of improving gender diversity was not gender-specific. Elizabeth Hesketh agreed, expanding by stating that the issue had to be looked at in a round, as a partnership. Across the board, the panellists urged attendees to take more risks and not be held back by fear of pushing themselves forward.

Networks – both formal and informal – were held to be important, particularly in assisting with the development of softer skills. Helen Cook acknowledged that women’s networks were different in nature to men’s networks as, in her experience, men tended to be more transactional in their networking. Kath Barrow commented that networking was a two-way process, comprising a give-and-take relationship.