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Year 12 students took part in the Words For Work: Women In Leadership programme recently, organised by The National Literacy Trust and Lancôme.

The programme helps girls and young women develop the literacy skills, leadership abilities and confidence they need to achieve their potential – and challenge inequalities in employment opportunities for young women in post-16 education.

At the online event students met Lancôme employees to learn about their careers and gain an insight into the advantages that good literacy skills can bring. For the second part of the programme, Lancôme and the National Literacy Trust hosted a panel event, which featured inspiring women from a diverse range of careers and sectors:

• Rebecca Fortuin is a Senior Audio Editor at HarperCollins (which means she gets paid to read books and hang out in studios with actors)
• Nallini Puri is a Partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb
• Bejal Shah is the Chief Executive at ReachOut, one of the UK's leading youth mentoring charities
• Morwenna Griffin heads up Developer Relations across EMEA at Unity Technologies
• Carolina Orqueda was born in Argentina, she studied at a polytechnic school in the small town of Arrecifes, she moved to the UK at the age of 20 where she studied and earned a BSc in International Studies.

Our students asked a range of insightful questions and were given advice on how to how to make yourself stand out in the job market. They looked at whether certain personality types are best suited to certain jobs and what to do if you don’t know what career you want.

The panel helped students see that career paths are not always straight, in fact they are often rather squiggly and wiggly!

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What students said…

“The panel event was really useful because the panellists provided a clear insight into their professions. The best pieces of advice I heard was that you don’t have to be an extrovert to be a good leader. A good leader trusts their intuition and is good at observing so they truly understand their team’s strengths and weaknesses.” Khudija, Year 12

“I was really inspired by Nallini Puri who moved from India to become a lawyer in the city. I really want to travel as part of my career path but was worried about how difficult that might be. Nallini helped me realise that you have to take a leap of faith and believe in yourself. I can’t wait to work somewhere new and different!” Angel, Year 12

“The events were really useful because they highlighted that women can do any job. We met women from a range of rolls and companies. I really appreciated the fact we could ask questions during the event as many of them resonated with my experience.” Breanna, Year 12