International Women’s Day 2025: Celebrating Women Who Inspire
Director’s Blog- Originally posted on LinkedIn by Artistic Director Kate Gorman between 3 March 2025 and 7 March 2025
March the 8th is International Women’s Day. As it approaches, I am reflecting on women who have or do influence my life. Each day this week I plan to spend a little time thinking about these women and sharing part of what they have contributed to how I see the world, what I do, and why I do it.
The Teachers Who Sparked My Creativity
I’m starting in the dim and distant past with a run of spectacular teachers at primary school…starting in top infants (year 2 in new money) through to second year juniors (year 4).
Mrs Turnbull (top infants) clearly had a flair for using creativity to increase engagement across the curriculum. This is the first time I remember falling in love with history, and it was through creativity. I vividly remember a day where we pretended that we were sailors on Captain Cook’s ship (we’d even made sailor hats with thick plaits down the back) – using creativity to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, imagining what that might have been like. I also remember a giant map of Ancient Egypt with blue paint for the River Nile, sand for the desert and mustard and cress for the fertile strip along the river’s edge…as the seeds sprouted it made you realise just how small an area defined the success of this mighty empire.
So, as I look back, I thank Mrs Turnbull for making the value of imagination and creativity in every subject and all walks of life so abundantly clear to me.
The Impact on My Work Today
So, as I look back, I thank Mrs Turnbull for making the value of imagination and creativity in every subject and all walks of life so abundantly clear to me.
And it’s impact on my work now? Now I develop and manage projects which use creativity to help people explore issues and/or experiences that matter to them. Now I get to see others go on a journey too and have lightbulb moments just as I did as a child. I’ve also learned to apply creativity to my personal journey and I often use art to explore my own ideas and feelings.
Miss Lamb and Mrs Smith defined my next two years…I struggle to remember who taught me what because they collaborated so often. We did some very, very, cool science projects (some of which have gone down in school legend). But when I reflect now, I think the thing that I take away is the value of their collaboration – individually they were pretty impressive, but as a collaboration they were more than the sum of their parts.
Lessons for My Career
I have been blessed through most of my working life to see the value of collaboration – whether that was working internationally across subsidiaries during my time working with Vodafone or now when I bring groups of creative practitioners together to deliver a project. When you successfully bring a group of people together and build a true collaboration, you can achieve something truly special and only possible because of the interaction of what each person brings.
Inspirational Women in the Workplace
As International Women’s Day 2025 approaches, I’m moving on to the workplace as I think about inspirational women.
I joined Vodafone straight from university as a trainee accountant, and in my first couple of years there had two inspirational bosses, Amanda Nelson and Linda Lewis.
Both gave me a role model of what and how it is possible to be in a corporate environment.
The Value of Care and Integrity
They taught me about working with care and integrity and how much difference this can make to the team around you.
Lessons in Emotional Support and Boldness
Two moments stand out for me during this time.
The first is Amanda helping me navigate the first time I ever got angry about something in the workplace. One of the things that surprised me about feeling angry was the way this expressed itself. Amanda was really paying attention to me and led me to a quiet space with closed blinds where I promptly burst into tears. She created a safe space for me and really listened. I walked out of that room with a much better understanding of what had just happened (and how to deal with similar feelings in the future) and also a way to move forwards with the thing that had angered me to start with.
The Power of Speaking Up
The second is perhaps my first corporate expression of bolshiness (even now I’m not quite sure how I was this brave…I speculate that I quite possibly hadn’t quite thought it through).
I’m sat in a room full of people on a company away day.
This room is primarily made up of men.
There must have been some sort of Q&A session and I put my hand up in the air and asked who my role models were for my future career path. I asked all the women at director level to stand up (1 person stood). From beside me I heard a whisper of “Senior Manager” and I amended my request for all the women at Senior Manager and above to stand up…my memory is that ONE more person stood up…that person was Linda Lewis who had been sat beside me.
In that moment Linda taught me the power of using statistics to make your point…there weren’t many people at Director Level…but there were lots of Senior Managers. Highlighting the lack of role models at a Senior Manager level was much more meaningful.
In my time at Vodafone it was great to see the number of senior women grow and role models begin to exist more widely for young accountants joining the company. I also saw concerted efforts to address why there might not be more senior women. It’s also pretty cool that Amanda is now CEO of Vodafone Ireland 😊
The Women in My Family
The women I’ve been thinking about today are my mum, daughter and grandma.
The Strength in Small Actions
My Mum tells me she’s never really done anything significant that makes a difference in the world. I beg to differ.
She’s right that she’s not one for a grand gesture, a big “WOW”. But she aces small things done in the every day.
That small drip, drip, drip of little deeds that all add up to something really quite special.
She has taught me how one might never make a big glamourous statement in the world, but all those tiny things that you do, the small gestures that happen in the every day…they all add up and make a fundamental difference to the people around you…and to society and the world.
So, I stand proud and say that I too am a person for small things.
I can’t imagine ever doing something really “WOW” but I can, and do, take small actions each and every day.
The Courage to Stand Up
My daughter?
She reminds me of the importance of being brave, if not on your own behalf, then on behalf of others.
I watch her step forward when others can’t or won’t. The world needs people like this. People who are prepared to stand up for what they believe to be right.
The Power of Choice
And, finally, Grandma – taking us to three generations of inspirational women.
Grandma was my beloved friend: someone with whom I shared interests and found forever interesting; someone who I supported in time of need and who also supported me.
In her early twenties, after WWII, she and a friend decided to up sticks and move from London to Dover. Taking up teaching jobs. They didn’t follow a husband or a parent. They went off their own backs just because they wanted to. She continued teaching throughout her life, including when her children were small, which was pretty unusual then. There were so many more unusual things she did, all full of get up and go….including deciding that she was going to learn Latin at nearly 90…as you do.
She taught me the value of deciding and doing. Taking opportunities. Giving things a go.I mean, be more Grandma, right!
Intergenerational Friendships and Role Models
For today’s International Women’s Day post, I’ve been thinking about the importance of inter-generational friendships and role models.
I remember when I went to university finding it deeply frustrating that there were a whole bunch of people who were all the same age, at basically the same stage in their lives…and with a limited range of experience behind them. With hindsight I now recognise that, while this was true to some extent, I almost certainly wasn’t seeing the full remit of experience…that there was greater breadth than was apparent superficially.
However, I was someone who was used to having friends and acquaintances who were older than me and I missed this terribly.
Four women stand out to me from when I was a teenager, and they remain close friends and influential in my life today: Debbie, Pippa, Judy and Helen.
The Value of Seeing People as Individuals
They value(d) me as an individual and didn’t dismiss my view-point because I was young (a teenager when they first knew me). This taught me that age is part of who you are, not an all defining feature.
So, in my career when I have walked into a room of older, more experienced professionals I have been able to remember that I have plenty of value to contribute and I have stood and held my own.
But also, looking the other way round, it reminds me that everyone in a room is of value. Everyone should be seen as an individual and be valued for who they are.
This is one of the things that I love about my job as a creative producer. I get to work with all sorts of people – people who are respected and valued alongside people who get dismissed for all kinds of reasons (including age). For me that variety brings a richness to my experience and learning – and I am endlessly grateful for that gift.
For them?
I hope that they take some of the sense of being valued for who they are that I have been gifted by my inter-generational friends.
The Women I Work With Now
On the last working day before International Women’s Day 2025 I’m reflecting on the amazing women that I get to work with now. People who encourage me, help me become more of who I am and better at what I do.
I’ve found thinking about who to bring to the fore really hard because I am truly blessed in the richness and supportiveness of my network.
There are women who are core in my everyday working life, some who I work with far less frequently but who I just know in my heart are there and others who I only fleetingly touch but who have that feel of mutual possibility.
In one post I can only pick up on a few examples of the people who bring so much to my life…if you’re not here please know that you are very much in my thoughts and heart.
The Women Who Shape My Work
Three women sit very strongly in my every day working life at the moment.
I’ve watched Lisa Charlotte Davis grow Changing Relations C.I.C. from an idea to an amazing social enterprise over the last decade or so. We’ve worked together in different ways over the years and I feel really lucky now to be Changing Relations’ Artistic Director. Lisa has shown so much belief and trust in me, as well as challenging me. These are things that have led to so much growth for me, personally and professionally.
I first met Jane Shaw when I started out working for myself running my first business, designing and making jewellery. I wasn’t young, but I was naïve. Jane was inspirational and encouraging then and has remained so ever since. It was Jane who got me writing my first ever funding bid (now a significant portion of what I do for a living)! Over the years we stayed in touch and now we work together most weeks. If you don’t know Jane, you really do want to: she’s a power-house and full to the brim with ideas.
Over the last year I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Janelle Rabe on my current project with Changing Relations C.I.C., Weaving Stories of Peer Sexual Abuse. She brings a new dimension to my insight and learning for which I am hugely grateful. She quietly challenges, informs and encourages…and is deeply interested in exploring ideas…a combination which really makes my heart sing.
The other thing that all three of these women have in common is that they care about me and look out for me. We all need people who do this for us – I hope that you have people like this in your professional (and personal) lives.
The Impact of Brief but Meaningful Encounters
I also want to pick up on a fleeting touch because I feel like this type of relationship is easy to underestimate and undervalue.
In the last couple of months, I’ve worked on a couple of events with Liza Knight. Liza is one of those entrepreneurs who fundamentally believes in supporting those around her…and I’d like to thank her for her incisive summaries of some of my strengths, why they matter and how they relate to entrepreneurship. Plus, she’s a big load of fun to work with.