Visible Women - Creating High-Profile Female Role Models to Inspire a New Generation of Female Leaders.
About
The 300-strong auditorium was treated to candid storytelling by Dame Sharon White, outgoing chairman of John Lewis Partnership, who regaled the audience with tales of growing up with a seamstress mother, about her career journey and advice on how we keep women in work.
During the session, steered by Dr Nighat Arif, White shared her top tips, which included finding mentors to sponsor, champion and lift you, and staying focused and determined.
She said: “If flexibility didn’t exist, I’d have given up work 15 years ago,” before going on to outline the progress women have made over the years. White said: “I had my first child at 37 and my second at 40. The change in navigating the world of work as a woman who was a mother was fundamentally different in a way, even as somebody who for years had promoted and worked with lots of women, that I had completely underestimated. It was the first time that my anatomy was starting to define - not necessarily my career choices, but those that others saw for me.”
Speaker
Sharon White
Dame
Sharon became the John Lewis Partnership's sixth Chairman in February 2020. Sharon moved from Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, where she served as Chief Executive for approaching five years.
Before joining Ofcom, Sharon was Second Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, responsible for overseeing the public finances. She also held Board level positions at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for International Development, worked as an adviser at the Prime Minister's Policy Unit and in Washington DC as a senior economist at the World Bank.
She is a trained economist and studied at Cambridge University and University College London.
