Zircon News Releases
16 October 2012
Business Women Share the Secrets of their Success
The second in a series of business Masterclasses for Women in Business was held at PwC offices in Gatwick on Wednesday 10th October. Delegates heard from senior female Directors and board members about what it takes to be a director/ partner and strategies for achieving success.
The event was organised by EVEnet – a social enterprise which supports and promotes women in business across the South East. This event was supported by the Gatwick Diamond Initiative, PwC and Prowse and Co Ltd.
There has been much debate over the reasons why fewer women than men reach the top levels of organisations. However, various research studies show that those companies with a strong female representation at senior management and board level perform better than those without. This event was designed to encourage more local women to apply for and attain board roles in the public and private sectors.
Delegates were treated to lively, honest and informative presentations. Setting the scene, Joanne Rogers Managing Director of award-winning PR and marketing consultancy, Prowse and Co Ltd, and founder of EVEnet, outlined how much work still needs to be done to level the playing field – only 10% of all directors of FTSE 250 companies are women.
Karen Dukes is a partner at PwC. She gave a very interesting account of her own personal journey from forensic scientist through to managing a 70-strong team within the global accountancy giant. Breaking through the ranks to partner, Karen had the benefit of a superb mentoring network. She now mentors a number of staff herself, as well as leading a diversity programme within the wider 1000 strong restructuring team to generate understanding of the differences between the characteristics of masculine and feminine leadership styles.
Professor Caroline Walker, Director of Brewing at Campden BRI in Nutfield, gave a fascinating insight into her role and experiences within the highly male dominated brewing environment. Caroline offered practical tips on developing the skill sets required for board roles and spoke of the importance of finding the time and space for strategic thinking. Caroline is an honorary Professor at Heriot Watt University and a Board Director of Surrey Connects, the local Enterprise Partnership.
Dr Amanda Potter runs an award winning Business Psychology Company specialising in Talent Management – Zircon Management Consulting. She advises companies on how to attract, select and recruit the best people for their organisation. Amanda emphasised the importance of candidates demonstrating their self belief, sharing their strengths, successes and future aspirations when seeking boardroom positions. She also spoke about Board Head Hunters and Executive Search firms.
Rosemary French, Executive Director of the Gatwick Diamond Initiative and a sponsor of the EVEnet Masterclass, summed up: “A clear message from today is that women have all the qualities to be excellent leaders. All of our speakers today are wonderful role models and demonstrate the power of mentoring and networking in helping us all to achieve our ambitions”.
11th May 2012
Business Leaders are in the Dark
Global Business Leaders are in the dark when it comes to understanding what “Talent” looks like. New research by Business Psychologists found that there is a disconnect between HR and Business Leaders, with knowledge of Talent Management strategies being communicated inconsistently or not at all.
These are the findings from Dr Amanda Potter of Zircon Management Consulting Ltd and will be presented at the Association of Business Psychologists Annual conference, Bedfordshire, 11th May 2012. http://theabp.org.uk/conference/abp_conference_2012/
The research was conducted with 150 Senior HR, Talent and Business Leaders from 85 international organisations. The research sought to understand how organisations approach Talent Management and found that only 50% of organisations have a clear definition of “Talent” or a clear Talent Management strategy.
Dr Amanda Potter said: “In this economy it is harder than ever to retain Talent and combined with ever reducing budgets, organisations need to ensure they remain competitive. To achieve this they need to believe that investing in their talent pool is critical to achieving the aspirations of the company.
Organisations need to develop a clear talent management strategy and communicate this consistently to the Business Leaders, who ultimately drive business success. To achieve this challenge, organisations need to prove the financial return of investing in talent to secure funding for the future.”
Whilst many organisations lack of a clear Talent Management strategy or definition of Talent, Leaders do agree that they need to increase their focus on Talent Management over the next three years in order to remain competitive. Dr Potter will discuss the challenges of this, as well as other key findings such as role of capability models, market drivers and Leader resilience, when presenting at the ABP conference.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr Amanda Potter, CEO, tel. 01737 555 862 (work), 07740 684 184 (mobile), amanda.potter@zircon-mc.co.uk.
