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Women in High Places: 10 top tips from Dame Nicola Brewer

11 March 2016

On Wednesday 9 March, Dame Nicola Brewer,

Dame Nicola Brewer net/30Q3-6DSF-20DDYC-29021-1/c.aspx">UCL Vice-Provost (International), held a talk and Q&A session titled 'Women in High Places', aiming to support and inspire female UCL students and to mark International Women's Day.

Nicola is responsible for UCL's Global Engagement Strategy, to increase UCL's global impact, and is the UCL Senior Management Team's Gender Equality Champion. 

She's a former senior diplomat who has lived and worked in India, France and Mexico, and was British High Commissioner to South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland (2009-13). She was Chief Executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (2007-09) and Director General, Regional Programmes at the Department for International Development (2002-04). In May 2014, Nicola joined UCL. 

In this engaging and thought-provoking talk, Nicola shared personal experiences of building her career. Her talk looked at a range of areas including making choices, family, confidence, gender, mentors, sponsors and career planning.

The talk was followed by an interesting and insightful Q&A session, further exploring themes covered in the presentation and related topics including: maintaining a work-life balance, networking, boundaries and professional relationships, dealing with different behaviours in the workplace and adapting to work cultures.

During her talk, Nicola shared some excellent top tips to inspire and empower women in their professional lives:

  1. Work out what you enjoy doing: develop self-awareness, e.g. do you like variety or familiarity?
  2. Check it out: take opportunities, give new things a go.
  3. Do things that open doors: if you don't yet know what you want to do, keep your options open as long as you can.
  4. Confidence: 'Fake it until you make it!'. Project more confidence than you may feel, but aim to be authentic and not arrogant.
  5. Focus on achievement, not activity: for example, in your CV say 'I raised £1,000 through a sponsored walk for disadvantaged children in my neighbourhood', instead of 'I did a sponsored walk for charity'.
  6. Be ready: subtly research people you know you will be meeting - for example, ahead of a job interview or business meeting. Prepare yourself to engage with them. Research current affairs so you have common ground to discuss.
  7. Get out more: attend events, even if you do not feel like it. Set yourself a target, for example 'I will meet three new people this evening'. Take their business cards and note something you will remember about that person so you are prepared when you meet them again. Start a contact database. You will be surprised at how many of these people you will come across again at some point in the future.
  8. Be visible: don't be shy about coming forward. Sit at the front. Ask questions. 
  9. Be a 'can-do' person: bring solutions, not problems. Contribute to discussions with 'Yes, and...' instead of 'No, but...'.
  10. Work the power in the room: but remember, the power does not always sit with the person with the most senior job title, and that it's harder to be kind than to be clever.

For further information about Dame Nicola Brewer, visit the UCL Global website.

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