Since the 1900s, International Women’s Day (IWD) has been recognised and celebrated, a movement born of the unfair mistreatment of women and the discrimination they face. We celebrate those who paved the way for us, fighting for women’s rights to vote, work, and to be treated as equals. Whilst great steps have been taken to get us where we are today, while inequalities still remain between the sexes, there is still work to be done.
At LACE we have taken this day as an opportunity to celebrate and champion our own wonderful women. Our employees and associates are an incredible bunch who each bring so much to LACE in terms of the work they do and also the remarkable people that they are. Whilst we wish we could mention individually how brilliant they all are, that would be a tremendously long blog! Therefore, we asked our Executive Team to nominate one female LACEr and one female outside of LACE that they admire and why.
Celebrating our female LACErs:
Lily Oliver
“Lily has been with LACE for over four years, she is a core member of the team and I admire her for having the courage of her convictions to take time out to study two days a week to help to her achieve her career ambitions.”
Rachel Mawson
“Rach is a dream from a brand advocacy point of view because she is very proactive with her social media presence demonstrating that she is really invested in her job and her profession. She is also somebody who is very in tune with our culture and as we grow she is a staunch believer in making sure we do everything in our power to maintain the culture we have. She is often very busy but is always there if you want to have a laugh with her and the camaraderie we have with her in the office really does light up the place sometimes.”
Cathy Acratopulo
“This is difficult in a business so full of female leaders and inspiring female role models! However, I am going to nominate Cathy. My friend, my business partner and the person I go to for advice and challenge. I think Cathy, is such a strong role model because for her gender makes absolutely no difference. People are either good at their jobs or not, she role models what a good leader is first and foremost everyday, balancing care and commerciality equally.”
Eve Edmonds
“Eve is very passionate about what she does and always comes up with ways to engage everyone in a different and fun way. She is also very passionate about the LACE team, CSR etc and willing to do whatever it takes to ensure events are successful and the best they can be. Within her role she is constantly being challenged with requests for things she needs to produce and does them to an extremely high standard.”
Romy Hobson
“Romy has a drive, energy and maturity in excess of her years. Her willingness to jump into new areas outside her comfort zone, her drive to continuously improve herself, and her natural leadership ability leads me to believe we will see great things from her in the future.”
Kerry Beer
“I could easily nominate 10 women across LACE that I admire! But If I had to pick one it would have to be Kerry. She always works tremendously hard, but particularly the past 12 months whilst simultaneously home schooling! She is the special cog in the LACE wheel and always keeps the show on the road.”
Jess Hernimann
“Jess has a huge amount of passion and commitment in everything she does and likes to roll her sleeves up and get involved to help LACE in its strategic focus and growth. She is not afraid to try new things and loves to learn. Looking forward to seeing how Jess flourishes.”
See all of our Team by visiting the ‘Our Team’ section of the LACE Partners website.
Celebrating females outside of LACE:
Greta Thunberg
“For making a stand against all the odds; for her plain speaking, no nonsense challenge to world leaders to sort out their response to climate change.”
My daughters
“I am constantly amazed by how much they need to deal with in the modern world and to watch them grow into strong, confident and purposeful women is one of the highlights of my life.”
Dame Carolyn McCall
“CEO of ITV and creator of Britbox. Previously CEO of Easyjet she is driving a digital agenda like no other in business.”
Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson
“I know that’s three, but I can’t not mention them all! Three incredible, pioneering female engineers and mathematicians known for their work at NASA and breaking through barriers that had help back women from reaching their potential. I wish I could have a brain like them!”
Madonna
“Might seem a bit random but I feel I have grown up with her and she is an amazingly determined lady who has reinvented herself so many times to keep doing what she loves doing over time and I still love her music now.”
Jacinda Arden
“Hard to look beyond this lady because she has been a real beacon of success in the COVID pandemic. She’s a very good leader, a sound communicator, she is inspirational to her people and her actions and decisions of her team have meant the kiwi’s have done the best job of minimising the impact of COVID to as fewer deaths and ill people as possible.”
Our Nanny
“She treats our kids like her own and despite recently losing her husband to Covid has continued to be at the centre of our lives and home schooling, she really is a strong and inspirational lady.”
And so many more we could mention…
This year’s IWD theme is #ChooseToChallenge and at LACE we choose to celebrate and champion our female inspirations both internally and externally. What will you choose to do, to help us all step closer to an inclusive world?
Reach out to Eve with your stories and tell us how you are celebrating International Women’s Day.
