Celebrating Women mentors

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I’m sure your feed has been full of IWD posts today. Most of mine are celebrating several women all at once, so I thought I’d buck this trend and acknowledge only one (no offence intended to all the other amazing women out there!).

Yesterday I attended an International Women’s Day Panel Networking Lunch, which also doubled as the launch for a “Seed2STEM Women in Manufacturing Network Mentoring Program” in Ballarat.

Driving there gave me an opportunity to think about the most inspirational woman in STEM that I worked with in my former career.

I first met her when she was in a role that could provide direct access to the Scientific & Technical Academic resources from the local University to support an industry lead program of work at Cadbury.

This program included the aim to develop a Chocolate Crumb Centre of Research Excellence, which is one of the proudest achievements in my career. Like all of my achievements, it could not have been done without a number of contributors, including the remarkable Anna Barlow GAICD .

When it came time to leave my role, I had already identified Anna as a potential successor to take my place. During conversations over a fairly short period of time, I suggested that she would swiftly adapt to life in a multinational business – she would do so well in fact, that she would likely be my boss in five years’ time. I was wrong, it was a little over three.

Over next last 15 years or so, Anna has positively impacted many people, both women and men, to further their respective careers through her management, leadership, coaching and mentoring – and she’s not done yet!