What we learned at FoundHER, AllBright’s festival celebrating smart-thinking women.

Seeing so many women of all ages attending our FoundHER festival – not to mention speaking on our many panels – proved that one of our maxims at the AllBright is absolutely true: brilliant things do happen when women get together.

Across the three locations – London, Manchester and Glasgow – we had panels full of smart-thinking women having candid discussions about everything from money, mental health and facing setbacks, to knowing your worth, being kinder to ourselves and where to go for business help.

We saw hundreds of posts across social media from women inspired by the FoundHER principles – you can see just some of the highlights on our Instagram and Facebook.

So many of the women who attended shared their own experiences during the sessions too - from the reality of balancing work and motherhood, to the importance of having confidence and self-belief in yourself when starting a business.

Some highlights from the five day festival?

Gina Miller filled a room with people eager to hear how she built resilience in the face of adversity. Gina discussed how she deals with hate crime and criticism post-Brexit case, and how her strength is also attributed to her role as a mother which she said ‘brought the lioness inside [her] to the fore.’

Emma Gannon and Bryony Gordon had a frank discussion about finding your motivation and focus when you are managing multiple projects and don’t have a typical 9-5, Monday to Friday job. Opening up about her mental health and battle with addiction, Bryony spoke at length about the impact this has had on how she deals with setbacks: ‘no one likes rejection, but learning how to deal with it, learn from it and move forward does make it a little less painful.’

Thomasina Miers and the Hemsley sisters talked about the challenges of finding funding – and the sexism they faced when doing it - and how they each dealt with imposter syndrome. Advising on how to transform your passion into a profitable reality, they all shared personal experiences from their journey, and told us of how they were often advised to follow a different business path but always followed their gut instinct: 'take frightening leaps - even when you’re told your idea won't work.'

And Channel 4’s Cathy Newman led a discussion about knowing what we as women are worth and how to get it in a country where eight out of ten companies pay women less. As well as a workshop with Melanie Eusebe on ‘How to ask for what you want’, the gender pay gap and tackling pay parity was very much on the agenda. The workshop reinforced the idea that it is well within your right to ask for what you want and (deserve), within the workplace. Melanie's take home tip? ‘Your worth never changes’.

The AllBright Academy

FoundHER demonstrated that the issues and challenges women in work face are improving but aren’t going away anytime soon. It’s made us even more determined to shout about the AllBright Academy – the next stage in our plan to make the UK the best place to be a working woman, by sharing skills, experience and networks via a free 10-week course.

We’ve put together a programme that covers so many of the themes that the women at FoundHER showed us were important – building resilience, managing work-life balance and having the confidence to ask for what you want. For women of every age, every stage, we have two programmes created in line with our experience – as a serial entrepreneur and founder of Love Home Swap, I head up the program for women with their own businesses, while my co-founder Anna Jones, former CEO of Hearst, for female executives in any industry looking to climb the ladder and smash the glass ceiling.

Whatever stage you’re at in your career, there’ll be practical advice that works for you. It all starts in September, but applications are open right now - to guarantee your place, please use the code LINKDN on your application.

We know women have big ambitions – we certainly do. That’s why we want to spread the word – if you know someone who could benefit from the Academy, let her know.

For all the details, visit the AllBright Academy site here.

Debbie Wosskow and Anna Jones

Co-Founders, AllBright