Empowering Women in Business: 14 Inspiring Stories
We’re celebrating a milestone in the history of Remote as the company turns 22 years old today.
Jeannie McGillivray
12 mins
It’s been an extraordinary year, during which time countless women around the world have gone that extra mile to inspire and support each other, to help one another rise, often in incredibly difficult circumstances.
From Michelle Obama to a best friend, inspiring words from women of influence can challenge us, empower us and leave us feeling confident and ready to take the next step to level up in our lives. In celebration of International Women's Day 2021, I’ve invited fourteen women in leadership from across the globe to share their personal stories about a female leader who has had a big influence on their ability to start or grow in their business and personal lives. Each contributor, an inspirational woman in their own right, shares an account of a memorable moment of leadership they personally benefited from – from how an outstanding boss led by example to a woman then in her teens, to how a friend encouraged a then teacher to take the leap to start her own business, to an article from a high-profile businesswoman that touched someone just at the right moment – each entrepreneur has been profoundly inspired by a woman to create the next chapter of their lives.
Whether you’re hatching a plan to start your own business, are already up-and-running or are at the helm of an International brand, each of these inspiring accounts will lift you even higher.
Jeannie McGillivray
Like many of my fellow contributors to this article, I've found it hard to choose just one woman who has had a positive impact on my life and inspired me to become more than I think I can be. I am enormously grateful for that. This year the theme for International Women's Day is #ChoosetoChallenge, and so I've chosen to celebrate a woman who challenged what I thought I could become and challenged me to excel at a very young age. Amanda (Mandy) Boxer was the first female boss I looked up to. She was the daughter of some friends of my parents, and manager of a branch of a women's clothes retail chain store. She gave me a shot at a job as a sales assistant when I was in my teens. Several physical and character traits stood out about Mandy, everyone noticed her walk into a room, she was tall, elegant and beautiful, and just the right mix of kind, funny, fair, down-to-earth, intelligent, professional and ambitious, which made quite a mark on my 16 year old self. Mandy had standards for her shop, sales targets to achieve and ambitions for her career. And she needed every one on her team to be at their best at work. She needed us to look smart, stay focused, delight customers, keep the shop tidy in between serving customers and achieve our share of the weekly sales target - and she gave us the necessary culture at work, training, encouragement and pointers to achieve that for her. Mandy climbed the career ladder from managing that shop in St. Albans, to Reginal Controller, to Head of Multi Channel Operations and Retail for a top PLC. Most of all, as a young working-class girl from a very similar background to Mandy, she showed me that if I worked at it, I could become more than I thought I was destined for. She made me believe that I could choose to challenge people's ideas and expectations, play to my strengths, carve out the life I wanted for myself and be the very best version of myself. And this is the torch I pass on to you.
Masami Sato
My inspiration came from my daughter. When I became a mum, feeling a profound love for my own baby daughter, I realised that children on the street could have been my daughter, and I felt compelled to do something. I wanted to help other children who didn’t have parents to protect and nurture them. My food business was five years old when I realised that I was still too busy to be making a difference in the way I wanted. Then, a very simple idea hit me. “What if we simply gave a meal for every meal we sold?” I discovered that we could give a meal to an underprivileged child for just 25 cents through an experienced NGO in India. It was even less than the cost of the packaging we were using. That was the start of the ‘buy one give one’ idea. Several months later, I had another epiphany. I realised that this idea shouldn’t be just for our own business. I wanted to help many other businesses to become giving businesses. I imagined a world that was full of giving. And our family decided to move to Singapore to start a global giving. Today, B1G1 (Buy1GIVE1) works with more than 2,800 businesses and these businesses have created over 225 million giving impacts to date. Impacts include 36,730 trees planted, 98,786,751 days of access to life-saving clean water, 16,037 books given to children, 23,039 income-generation tools provided and many, many more things. We describe these magic numbers as ‘smiles being created’. Yes, 225 million smiles and counting. https://www.b1g1.com/
Julie Barber
My female leader's inspiration is Karen Brady. Throughout my employed career, I’d been increasingly aware of her – her drive, her success and her ability to stand tall in very male-dominated environments. As I became a mother and started to consider a different direction, I read a magazine article about how she managed family life, the doubts she sometimes faced and how she managed everything, and it really made me feel “I can do that too!”. I now run Spark! Consulting, a boutique business consultancy working with startups, scaleups and established businesses on investor readiness, strategy and corporate governance. www.spark-consulting.co.uk
Penny Power
My female leader of inspiration is Hannah Power. My daughter. Before you think this is an adoring mum who has no reason, please read on. I told my children that on my first date with their father, I said to him “I don’t expect anyone to make me happy, this is my job, I won’t delegate that to anyone”. I have always believed that happiness comes from within and is our own responsibility. Aged 24, Hannah, working in her new role for a Management Consulting Firm having graduated the year before, went on holiday to Morzine to go skiing. Now living independently in London, she came to us the night before and I dropped her at Heathrow Airport. 3 days later at 5.30 am, I got that dreaded call that no mother wants to hear. “This is Geneva Hospital, we have your daughter, she was brought in by ambulance and police. She has been raped.” The fact is, 3 men had taken her off in a car and put Hannah through a terrible time, thankfully, she put up a fight and only one of them succeeded. That statement alone shows the positivity we all held onto. You can listen to her story here. In the interest of brevity for this article, Hannah was brave, courageous and positive from the outset and 18 months later when she decided to travel to Bali alone to find her future self and build her own company. As we parted at the same airport, Hannah turned to me and said “Mum, that story of what you told Dad on your first date… well, let’s add some words to this, “I don’t expect anyone to make me happy, this is my job, I won’t delegate that to anyone,”…” but you have to fight for it”. So, my hero is my daughter, she never became a victim and she fought for it and returned us all to happiness. https://www.pennypower.co.uk/
01 — PUT IDEAS INTO PRACTICE
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