We’re thrilled to be hosting a wide range of activities to celebrate International Women’s Day, aiming to inspire conversations and changes to make a real impact for women all year round. Our first activity of the year is our International Women’s Day panel event, taking place at Leigh Court on the 8th March, where we’ll be opening up the floor to discussions with our panellists and those in attendance.
We’re pleased to have Georgia Corp joining the panel, who works as an Account Director at Stratton Craig, and is also the 2023-2024 President of Bristol Junior Chamber (BJC). We spoke to her about her inspirational career, and why she’s excited to speak about inspiring inclusion at our International Women’s Day event this year.
Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your career and your current position at Bristol Junior Chamber / Stratton Craig?
I’m a communications specialist and my experience across PR, internal communications, translation and editing has led me to my current role of Account Director at Bristol-based content and copywriting agency Stratton Craig.
I manage strategic, global projects for clients across a broad range of industries, working with our talented writers to deliver high-quality content for different channels and audiences. We also support businesses with defining and articulating their verbal identity through tone of voice development.
Outside of work, I’m also the 2023-2024 President of Bristol Junior Chamber (BJC), a local networking organisation for young professionals that has been operating since 1948. My role is to work alongside our fantastic, 16-strong Council of Management to ensure the smooth running of the organisation and to make sure we can offer a fun and diverse roster of events, activities, workshops, networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities for our 130+ members.
Why did you choose to get involved with our International Women’s Day event this year?
I was very pleased to be invited to join Business West’s IWD 2024 panel session, alongside some very inspiring leaders in Bristol business. It’s imperative we continue to celebrate women’s achievements and raise awareness of the discrimination that’s still rife across societies. With that in mind, I’m very much looking forward to the important discussions focused on this year’s IWD theme of #inspiringinclusion with the panellists and attendees at the event.
Why do you feel this year’s theme of Inspiring Inclusion is so important?
There’s a long way to go before we achieve genuine gender parity. The workplace is a place where bias, stereotyping and discrimination continue to play out, which means inclusion is key to making sure women are recognised properly throughout their careers and there is equal opportunity available to them in the professional world.
How can we inspire inclusion for women and girls by supporting them into leadership, decision-making, business and STEM?
Supporting women and girls in leadership, decision-making, business and STEM is an incredibly valuable means of inspiring inclusion in the workplace. If women can see that there are equal opportunities available to them – opportunities to which they are welcomed and that they are supported to secure – then they will feel valued, deserving and that they belong.
At Stratton Craig, I’m fortunate enough to work in a business where I have some brilliant female role models in the Senior Leadership Team, and where about 60% of the company is female. In this way, we celebrate recruiting and retaining female talent, as well as recognising and supporting ongoing progression and professional development.
This year at Bristol Junior Chamber, we’ve seen the organisation’s first all-female leadership team in its 75-year history, with me as President, Emma Carter as Vice President and Kate Woosnam as Immediate Past President. The Council of Management, a team of 16, is also predominantly female. I hope this inspires women from across our membership to join the Council and explore the opportunities that such a voluntary leadership role can offer.
How can we inspire organisations, groups and individuals to understand and value women’s inclusion?
Stratton Craig is a specialist sustainability reporting partner; we are experts in sharing stories that inform, persuade and inspire, and we work with UK and global businesses to highlight their impacts and the enduring value they create. There is more scrutiny than ever on ESG performance, so we help with mapping goals and sharing progress which is key to winning the trust and confidence of investors, as well as employees and consumers.
The businesses that will thrive under this increasing requirement for transparency are those that see sustainability as a key success factor and prioritise identifying the risks and opportunities to underpin the long-term viability of their organisation. As such, communications are a vital part of sustainability, and the more that businesses are called on to report on their efforts to achieve gender parity and women’s inclusion, the more we can inspire organisations, groups and individuals to understand and value it.
What do you hope people get out of listening to you and the other panel members after the event?
I hope the panel session invites attendees to reflect on the opportunities available to them – or the opportunities they make available to their female employees – and the barriers to achieving them that might exist. I hope that attendees who may not have faced such barriers to opportunity feel inspired to become allies after listening to experiences shared at the event. I hope that everyone feels motivated to keep raising awareness of discrimination and to celebrate women’s achievements.
If you would like to be a part of our International Women’s Day conversation, we would love to see you at our panel event on the 8th March, taking place at Leigh Court in Bristol. Spaces are still open, and you can find out more and sign up here.
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