Building on this year’s theme #EachforEqual, we were joined at This Place's HQ by a panel of female leaders to discuss empowerment and innovation; sharing the challenges they’ve overcome, the life lessons they've learnt, and how they imagine the new generation.
It was refreshing to hear thoughts on leadership from three inspirational women at the top of their game. We’re in a new age of equality rights; and intersectionality was a consistent thread throughout the evening.
Having speakers who were intuitive, honest and empathetic was the greatest gift. It was enriching to be in a space where we were all looking towards the future of women and equality as a whole.
They worked through hard topics like 'how do we become more intersectional as a workplace' and 'why do we feel the design and tech worlds have become so homogenous.' - Though, gratitude wasn’t forgotten!
It was great to see everyone united to celebrate how far we’ve come; you could see that quite a lot of what was said by the speakers really resonated with the audience. We, as a group, also got to share our own personal stories about allies in the workplace that have championed us into the positions we’re in.
A massive thanks to our speakers of the night:
Penelope Jones is the founder of My So-Called Career, a bespoke careers consultancy which enables women in early and mid career to develop the confidence and tools they need to build healthy and productive relationships with work; stepping up into their own vision of success in a way that's sustainable and realistic.Prior to launching MSCC in early 2018, Penelope worked in leadership roles at the Guardian and Conde Nast, reshaping and resourcing complex organisations for the future across multiple markets and brands.
Dawn is Managing Director of This Place, an experience design company who partner with global brands to improve people’s lives and create commercial impact. Dawn works with retailers and brands across Asia, Europe and the US on a range of strategic design challenges - from understanding customer and business needs through to designing future propositions and the organisational changes required to support them. Her passion is bringing together commercial strategy and human centred design to create truly innovative propositions and business models.
Allison Ma is the Head of Data Science at Wagestream. Wagestream is a fintech startup that allows employees to stream earned wages whenever they need. Allison is responsible for making teams more data-driven and helping Wagestream understand its financial impact on users. Previously, Allison worked in the gaming industry, measuring game economies at GSN Games and researching how streamers grow at Twitch. Allison holds a BS in Decision Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
