Circle Mentoring at Barclays

Posted in News on 17 Jun 2014

Last week I was privileged to represent the North West’s SME business community as part of the Circle Mentoring Programme designed to help female Barclays employees progress in their careers.

The event, hosted by Beverley Wilson, was targeted at commercial business owners and managers from across the region. The panel format included four mentors; Joy Kinglsey - Senior Partner at JMW, Alan Turner - Co-Head of Corporate Banking Ordination (Barclays), Jackie Taylor - Regional Director, UK SME Credit - North (Barclays) and yours truly.

Attendance was impressive with more than fifty business women present - all currently working in mid to senior positions. The focus of the event was to highlight today’s most challenging business issues by sharing our personal experiences and insights with the group.

Having been involved in several panel debates recently – albethey typically legal centric affairs – it was fascinating to hear from my non-legal peers that the issue of effectively balancing your working life and family life was less of a problem in their corporate environment. I was somewhat surprised but inspired too.

Of course the debate will continue but on this occasion the ‘achieving the right balance’ topic formed only a small part of the afternoon’s wider conversation. (As soon as the phrase ‘work/life balance’ is uttered at a typical legal sector debate it can dominate and decimate the agenda.)

With ‘work/life balance’ positively and quickly ticked off the list it was refreshing to concentrate on exploring such matters as; how to present; how to win business, retain it and grow it; and how to perform effectively as a supportive mentor.

There’s been no shortage of articles in the press recently documenting how the legal industry is moving towards a more flexible working culture and striking a healthy balance. Hear! Hear! The corporate world – many a legal practitioners’ core client base – is teaching us a thing or two about how to maximize performance and profitability by striking the perfect balance. It’s time for the legal profession to listen up and catch up and for female business leaders to lead by example.

Right, I’m off to my daughter’s sport day. No, seriously. ;o)

Kathryn Riley | Managing Director

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