Author Claire Fox gave an illuminating talk in the Sixth Form Centre on Tuesday as part of the College’s celebration of International Women’s Day.
Claire is Global Human Resources and Child Safeguarding Director with the charity, Save the Children International, and the author of Work-Life Symbiosis, which is designed to help people understand what is really important to them in life and align their choices accordingly.
Claire described her work in HR, explaining that the most important aspect is getting the most out of the workforce in terms of leadership and encouraging people to be the best they can both within a workforce and as individuals.
Her basic message was that “wisdom comes with age” and she urged the audience to stay connected with what is important to them.
As a life lesson, she encouraged the pupils to work out who they are and who they want to be despite pressures from everyone else.
Claire highlighted the importance of values and behaviour and noted that making brave choices is a hard thing to do. As an example, she described her own situation when, as a Great Britain junior canoeist, she stopped enjoying training, felt burnt out and had stopped winning races.
She realised something had to change. It was a risk, but she decided to study Sports Science at Loughborough in the belief that everything leads to something.
She advised the audience to look at what benefit can come from a bad situation and said that assumption in any relationship will inevitably lead to misunderstanding.
The talk was very well received and the audience asked Claire numerous questions pertinent to International Women’s Day at the end, including will the next US president be female, will there be a female Pope in the future, should women feel they have to wear make-up at work and should women fight on the front line in the army?
The work of Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, as a strong female role model, and her book, Lean In, which encourages women to stretch for the jobs they want and deserve, without being perceived as bossy or aggressive, was also discussed.