What impact has the pandemic had on you personally and professionally? I don’t think that this time last year, anyone expected us to all have faced the challenges that this pandemic has thrown at us. The roller coaster of uncertainty and limitations on our lives that we take for granted. Professionally, we suddenly had to face the uncertainty of if businesses could suddenly cope with such dramatic loss of trade, the furlough of staff, working from home & trying to manage a team remotely. I couldn’t be prouder, that as a business, we rallied round to help supply the nightingale hospitals with their sanitary needs at short notice, whilst still trying to ensure that globally, the workforce was kept safe & operational. Within my own team, I had colleagues that had to cope with personal grief, during times where there was such limited interaction with

What impact has the pandemic had on you personally and professionally? The pandemic has affected all of our lives in so many ways; some we are aware of, others we are yet to uncover and will take years for the full effect to be understood and realised. In a professional, capacity, it has affected me in a number of ways. Leading two schools means I have had to oversee the switch to remote working whilst maintain high-quality education, strictly controlled COVID environments when face to face, which has meant that everything the school has done has had to be rethought and redone and the management of confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the school communities. At all times, whilst teaching remotely, holding parents’ evenings on line and managing business demands, pastoral support has become the main focus for both staff and students and we have brought

What impact has the pandemic had on you personally and professionally? The pandemic has made me realise personally, how important family members, friends and neighbours are.  We all know this anyway and as mothers we always go the extra mile to ensure our family are safe and happy.  However, I have found that it is the simple things that matter the most – the hugs, the smiles, the tears and the honesty and realisation that although I am a mother and seem very strong – I can cry too! I feel that the pandemic has made us closer although living apart.  My wonderful daughter has changed into a loving caring woman who checks that everyone is okay – she was like this before the pandemic, but I just didn’t give her the opportunity to care for me too – I am the mother after all!

What impact has the pandemic had on you personally and professionally?   I’ve been working from home since March 2020, and as a result I have had to adapt to new ways of working, (it has been surprising how many work plates you can keep spinning from the spare bedroom!), and I’ve had to get used to not being surrounded by colleagues.  I’ve also had to step into different roles to cover what was needed whilst some staff were furloughed. The pandemic has had a significant impact on our charity, particularly a substantial reduction in income through the closure of our charity shops and cancellation of fundraising events.  This led to uncertainty about any impact on our services and the need to launch of a huge emergency fundraising campaign with almost no time to plan it. Personally, like everyone else I’ve had to adapt to limited opportunities for

What impact has the pandemic had on you personally and professionally? Personally it has meant that I have missed my team and spent more time at home and have worked probably harder than I have worked for a long time!  With the economy under such pressure the Chambers of Commerce have really stepped up and provided a service of information, advice and help to thousands of businesses in Staffordshire.  Professionally, the greatest challenge has been moving from place based to digital, supporting my excellent teams in delivering help to businesses and people who are struggling and ensuring that everyone’s mental health is looked after. How has Covid-19 changed your way of management? I think I have got much closer to my teams, we instigated daily meetings at the start of the first lockdown and currently have twice-weekly meetings which everyone appreciates and enjoys.  Zoom and

What impact has the pandemic had on you personally and professionally? Like everyone else, the pandemic was a huge shock. Everything happened so quickly. I was in Russia on 22nd February 2020 at a conference where I delivered a presentation on our work in the UK. I met some fantastic women from Italy, Iceland, Spain and of course Russia, all working to combat Violence Against Women and Girls in their countries. I can remember people joking about the Corona Virus because everyone still thought this was something that was happening in China, and the reality of it spreading in the way it has was still unimaginable. Shortly after I came back, we realised at Staffs Women’s Aid that we needed to prepare ourselves. It was a period where things changed every day. We would meet and put together a risk plan, and then the next

What impact has the pandemic had on you personally and professionally? Dealing with the pandemic has presented a significant number of challenges professionally ranging from understanding what the first lockdown meant in terms of how we continued to deliver our services to our communities, through to the extremely prolonged nature of these challenges. We have had to be remarkably flexible over the last year as the country has moved from tiers to phases to local lockdowns and back into a national lockdown. All emergency incidents present challenges but generally they are short-term in nature but dealing with the pandemic has been relentless. My resilience has been tested beyond that which I experienced previously and whilst I have always had a strong network around me I have drawn on it far more than ever before. Tragically I lost a member of staff to C19 and this

We'll be looking at some local women in leadership during the pandemic later this week, but first let's look at women in leadership internationally. The women leading nations in the fight against Covid-19, it's made us realise just how many there are, and how well acclaimed many of them have been as a result of controlling the spread of the pandemic in their countries. Sheikh Hasina Wazed Prime Minister Bangladesh Mia Mottley Prime Minister Barbados Mette Frederiksen Prime Minister Denmark Kersti Kaljulaid President Estonia Sahle-Work Zewde President Ethiopia Sanna Marin Prime Minister Finland Rose Christiane Raponda Prime Minister Gabon Salome Zourabichvili President Georgia Angela Merkel Chancellor Germany Katerina Sakellaropoulou President Greece Katrin Jakobsdottir Prime Minister Iceland Ingrida Simonyte Prime Minister Lithuania Maia Sandhu President Moldova Aung San Suu Kyi State Counsellor Myanmar Saara Kuugongelwa Prime Minister Namibia Bidhya Devi Bhandari President Nepal Jacinda Ahern Prime

For International Women’s Day 2021 Stafford Soroptimists wanted to look at women from our local area, women in leadership, women who have been making a difference and we want to celebrate them, because we need women leaders when times are tough.  So look out for some of the local women whom we have chosen to highlight, read their stories and join us in celebrating the difference they have made in their professional area and much further afield.  The International Women's Day campaign theme is #ChooseToChallenge, it's all about gender equality. A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.  From