Our Women and Leadership programme is designed to equip women from across the business with the tools, skills, confidence and support network to progress into senior leadership roles underpinning our ambition to have 40% women in leadership positions, globally, by 2020. In our regular series, ‘Five minutes with’, we catch up with some of this year’s cohort to hear about their experiences on the programme.

Why did you apply for the programme?

I thought it was a fantastic opportunity to be connected with other like minded women in the network, all with the unified goal of building each other up. It’s not often you get the chance to have dedicated training and support to help you achieve what you want to achieve both professionally and personally alongside your normal day to day work. I wanted to be part of the course that could assist me in becoming a stronger leader, both for my own benefit and for the benefit of those that I lead and manage.

What do you hope to achieve from being on the programme?
I hope to acquire the skills and tactics to enable me to be more confident in what I do, learning how to adapt my styles to get the best out of people I work with, helping them to progress and achieve their goals too. I hope to be inspired to think about my long term career ambitions and what I can start doing now to help to achieve these while remaining authentic to who I am and my own values.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learnt so far?
The importance of strategic networking and how my own networks can help me achieve my vision for the next year. I have been able to identify the different roles particular networks play in my career goals and having a well-defined vision has allowed me to focus attention on what I need to do to help me get there and make my vision become a reality.

Martha Tewkesbury is a Group Paid Search Manager at iProspect