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As part of our initiatives to celebrate women during Women’s History Month, it was fitting to launch the next cohort of the Global Women Leaders Programme (GWLP) supported by SSP. Hosted in the AlixPartners offices in London, the 36 delegates – 20 from the Hospitality, Travel and Leisure sector and 16 from the Retail sector – came together for the first time to meet with cohort peers and mentors, and discover more about this programme.
Founder and Chair, Tea Colaianni kicked off the launch event with a reminder of how equity for women is still a work in progress, backed up by results from the Working Women’s Survey recently undertaken by WiHTL & DiR to gain a profound understanding of the insights and experiences of women working in HTL and Retail.
“90% of the women responding to the Survey said that they aspired to reach senior leadership positions. Women in our industries are incredibly ambitious.”
After a warm welcome by Leanne Knight, Group Director of Talent & Inclusion at SSP, sponsors of this latest cohort, event participants heard from Sarah John, SSP’s Group Corporate Affairs Director. Sarah described her career journey and ended with three top tips for those embarking on the next stage of their professional development:
Be brave and go for it
Be good at what you do and work smarter
Build flexibility into your work and home life
“Our responsibility is to make it easier for other women coming through.”
WiHTL & DiR’s Head of Learning, Alena Korcinova outlined the programme over the coming four months and attendees were given first-hand insights of the programme from a previous delegate and her mentor, Lucy Lynam from TUI and Victoria Aldridge from The Very Group. The Candidate Experience Panel discussed how they established a good mentor/mentee relationship and the positive impact of this element of the programme. Their advice: “invest the time”, “have open and honest conversations'' and “both enjoy it!”
After a Q&A, Tea wrapped up the launch with strong words from Melinda French Gates: “When you lift up women, you lift up humanity”, and encouraged those present to “stay visible” and “ignore the noise” to ensure nothing holds them back.
The Global Women Leaders Programme
The GWLP is a unique, comprehensive, cross-industry programme designed to provide a series of experiences and learning opportunities to support career progression for high potential women leaders in the Hospitality, Travel, Leisure and Retail industry.
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