International Women’s Day, Midlands branch event

APM Women in Project Management SIG hosted this event in partnership with the APM Midlands branch and Santander's Women's network on 7 March 2019 in Milton Keynes.

Marion Thomas and Sarah Walton started us off by sharing the diversity of their careers and how despite their challenges at the time were difficult, they were able to overcome them through resilience and keeping that Imposter Syndrome in check.

Their advice included tips on making sure you have a support network, being true to your values and being brave in leading projects and life in general not forgetting to be kind to yourself.

Monisha Gower shared her career journey through a powerful and humbling story about following your own aspirations, challenging yourself and not being afraid to change paths if one route doesn’t work out. She also shared experiences on how she has overcome challenges within her career and, the importance of resilience and having a good support network around you.  As well as the importance of knowing yourself, what drives and empowers you.

It was amazing to hear across the two talks, honest reflections and such strong common threads around resilience, having a good support network and being the architect of your own career path where ever you are aspiring that to be. They left the audience with a takeaway - an exercise on assessing your support network, inspirational career journey's from women talking to their younger selves and further information about Extraordinary Project Management.

Marion and Sarah’s remarks after the event included “The diversity, talent, and energy in the room was further evidence that project management is a great career for women. Some great networking and interesting conversations were happening and the mutual support being shared was palpable.

It was great to see so many people of all ages at the Milton Keynes IWD event despite the fact the M1 was closed making it really difficult to get there. Well done to everyone who made it. It was really interesting to talk to people after the event and realise that everybody’s career journey is different but the common denominator is that we all face challenges and our response defines whether these are problems or opportunities.

APM Midlands branch and APM Women in Project Management SIG