We love an awareness day here at FD Comms, and with today being International Women’s Day (IWD), we thought we’d reflect on some of the things this day represents and why it’s important.
If we’re being honest, IWD is sometimes seen as a bit of a controversial one – we should be celebrating great women every day – it’s like New Year’s Eve when you’re supposed to have fun and Valentine’s Day where you’re supposed to celebrate love… our view is that all of this can be done the other 364 days of the year. But just like New Year and Valentines, it is also quite nice to have a day just to focus on celebrating brilliant women, and we know a lot of those.
We didn’t do it on purpose, but we’re a team entirely of women at FD. We all juggle home lives, love lives, work lives and anything else that fits in our lives, so why not indulge eh?
It’s not just about us though, it’s about the ones who came before us, and the ones who come after us too. We want to keep the women of the future inspired, and there’s no better way to do this than looking at the women who came before you and learning from their wins.
Inspirational Women We Work With
We work with a number of remarkable women – from Hayley Parsons, the woman who was not only instrumental in getting Confused.com off the ground back in 2001, she also then went on to launch GoCompare. That’s two Wales based businesses who, in 2020 sold for a combined amount of over £1billion. Then there’s Sarah Williams Gardner, who is the CEO of FinTech Wales. Sarah was previously a founding member of Starling Bank, which was voted Best British Bank in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. She now heads up the non-profit organisation in Wales that’s tasked with making our country a globally recognised FinTech Hub.
Another inspirational woman is Rhian Mannings, who founded bereavement charity 2Wish. As Front Door’s designated charity for a number of years, we are full of admiration for Rhian, who, after living through her own tragedy, has set up a charity that aims to help people going through sudden loss and bereavement. Rightly so, Rhian has been recognised on the Queen’s New Year honour list and awarded an MBE for her hard work, and was awarded special recognition at the 2020 Pride of Britain Awards.
The Women of Front Door
Within the four walls of FD, we also have a team of women who are really great at what they do – from ex-journalists, to published authors, armchair investors, pottery experts and social media whizzes, we have quite a bit to be proud of, but we’re absolutely crap at shouting about it. Why is that?
Mostly we say something like:
“Ah no one wants to hear about my stuff.”
“I’m just doing what anyone else does.”
“Don’t you dare put a picture up of me.”
“Really? Do I have to? FFS.”
And actually, yes we do! We might find it cringey sometimes and we might physically recoil at the thought of talking about our own experiences but we actually owe it to the ones in school right now to be the annoying old ladies who say “when I was starting out, I did this!”
My six-year-old daughter constantly asks me what I think she should be when she grows up – and I try to throw loads of ideas her way, all of which get shot down when she almost always decides that she’s going to be a farmer. And while I don’t think she’s going to necessarily follow her dream to be a farmer, I just want her to know that she can do whatever she wants to do.
Pass It On
We’d love to pass on this message of positivity, encourage more and more people to get involved and think about how you can share your experiences to help others fulfil their goals. So, if you know someone who wants a career in PR and marketing and would like to talk to anyone at FD, please get in touch! To get to work inspiring the next generation, we can:
- Have 1-1 chats with budding marketing and PR pros
- Arrange work experience placements
- Set up talks and events
- Put you in touch with our clients, who stretch across a variety of industries
If you’re a teacher and you want your students (of any age) to hear from someone in a certain industry, we can help you organise this. You never know what’s going to motivate someone to do something, so on the off chance you might inspire someone, please talk to us today and see if we can pass it on.
Love it or hate it, International Women’s Day has given us a chance here at FD Comms to take stock, look at a few of the awesome women we work with and hopefully help to pass it on to the next generation of awesome women (and men). We can’t wait to see what they get up to.