Every year on March 8, governments, women’s organisations, corporations and charities come together to mark the day with talks, art performances, network events and marches.
International Women’s Day is a worldwide event that calls for gender equality.
This year’s celebration is themed #BalanceforBetter with the tag line ‘better the balance, better the world’.
As part of our celebration, we are showcasing four of our female members of staff.
Anna Lawrence
I am the Director of People at LiveWest with a remit to promote employee engagement and a positive and supportive working culture to ensure colleagues feel committed to deliver on their objectives and meet our corporate goals. The highlight of my career is seeing members of my team flourish and fly and my biggest challenge has been having the same confidence in myself that others have in me. My future goals are to live in a world where policies and procedures are no longer necessary and replaced by guidelines. The best piece of advice I would give myself is that you can achieve anything you put your mind to and do it in a way that is mindful of others. For me, success is working with colleagues to make LiveWest the best place to work, creating a flexible and enabling culture that allows people to deliver on their objectives. And, of course, have fun along the way.
Jill Farrar
I am the Executive Director of Governance and Compliance responsible for regulatory and legal compliance. It covers a number of functions including risk management, internal audit, legal and company secretarial services and procurement. One of my highlights is becoming a member of the executive team and being able to influence the direction of LiveWest and the provision of much-needed social housing in the south west. One of my biggest challenges has been a lack of self-confidence which I have overcome through persistence and putting myself in situations where I have had to carry things through. Amongst my future goals is to put LiveWest on the map and have one of the highest achieving teams in the organisation. The best piece of advice I would give myself is don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Suzanne Brown
I am Executive Director of Neighbourhoods and Customer Service at LiveWest and my role involves setting the direction for our customer-facing services. My highlights centre around working for an amazing company and having the opportunity to really shape services for the future. The biggest challenge I’ve overcome is engaging and building trust with teams across a wide geographical area. I’m not sure I’ve overcome it yet but I work hard to try. My future goals are to build real trust with our customers and work to address the stigma they face as social housing tenants. One day I would like to run a tea shop. Success to me is seeing someone who works with me get promotion, celebrating as a team achieving our end-of-year targets or handing over the keys to a new home to a family who’ve been homeless or housing someone who’s been street homeless for 35 years.