October 2012 Event 9 at IBM

“My career is in my hands, and I can only be the best I can be”

The Connecting Women in Technology initiative has now completed a complete cycle with events held at every member company. We have completed our first cycle and are delighted to be on the first event of our second cycle. We’ve updated our logo, are organised and we have a great framework that we now use for each meeting.

Our Ninth meeting, or the first meeting of our second cycle we returned again to IBM, this time to the customer centre on the Southbank in London.

The theme for this event was: Gender Balance – the Reality!

13:30 – 14:00 — Intro – Caroline Taylor, VP Marketing IBM UK
14:00 – 15:00 — Main Keynote Speech – Angie Peacock, CEO The People Development Team
15:00 – 15:30 — Coffee Break for Networking
15:30 – 16:15 — First Break-out Session
16:15 – 17:00 — Second Break-out Session
17:00 – 17:30 — Wrap Ups from Break Outs and Q&A
17:30 – 19:00 — Networking Drinks Reception

We had amazing breakout sessions with some amazing facilitators who covered topics that many of us resonated with. Topics that are not gender specific but thought provoking and inspiring for everyone :

Living Leadership – Changing the way work, works for good – Lynn Copp

Be Heard: Silencing the inner Saboteur – Sue Holly-Rodway

Discover your Unconscious Bias – Angie Peacock

Effective Self Promotion – Gregor Findlay

As at every event, we collect feedback from the attendees and use this to guide our future sessions.

We encourage everyone to be the best that they can be.

All of us in the CWT project team hope that our sessions give folks a chance to find the support they need to build their networks and grow their career.

Here is a selection of feedback we received from the event.

“It was excellent to see so many working and intelligent women”

“Good to take the time out of work to reflect on things I can do to become a stronger female professional”.

“Meeting with other experienced professional women and little tips to get myself heard without being pushy. Very inspiring”.

“It was my first event and I really enjoyed it – it is really hard to make time to come to these things, I am so glad I did”.