Last year EG ran a survey asking women of the built environment to tell us why we weren’t seeing enough female faces up on stage at industry events.
More than 200 women responded. The results, which we published earlier this year, showed that many lacked confidence or didn’t feel the panel was diverse enough (and often relevant enough) for them to feel comfortable being a part of.
A whopping 74% of respondents said they would like training to be offered as part of panel selection.
At EG we took the results of the survey seriously and pledged that we would do something about it – that we would continue with our endeavour to have mixed panels and that, through our REWIRE initiative, would seek to arrange more events that enable a wide spectrum of the industry to practice and hone their skills in a safe environment.
And that is exactly what we are doing.
Taking to the stage
This week we launch our Future Female Leaders programme, an exciting learning and development initiative we have teamed up with expert provider Ginger Public Speaking to deliver. The programme is a four-month training course for 12 women from across the entire spectrum of real estate to learn how to be an eloquent, engaging and powerful speaker.
The programme will see these dozen future female leaders work together to individually tell the story of the life of a building, and how each role in the built environment is vital to bring a property to life.
The event will culminate in the women delivering an engaging Ted Talk-style presentation at an EG event in front of a high-level real estate audience.
This year the programme is focused on raising the profile of women in real estate and on tearing down and destroying the “Tiara Syndrome”, whereby women habitually seem to wait to be asked to get up on stage or step forward.
With Ginger Public Speaking, the Future Female Leaders programme will give our 12 participants the skills needed to put themselves forward and entirely boss it up on stage.
The programme is a great opportunity for numerous voices and views from across the industry to gather and share what makes real estate real estate. It is an opportunity for women in the industry to help other women by leading the way, by being the “someone like me” up on stage – and for the businesses supporting those women, it is an opportunity to showcase the talent within the firm, an opportunity to invest in and grow future leaders, to encourage those just starting out in their career.
“This is a huge learning and development programme and is an essential part of any leader’s toolkit,” says Ginger Public Speaking founder Sarah Lloyd-Hughes. “The combination of this training and EG’s input, I just think it is epic, utterly epic, and I think everyone should be clamouring to have a space on it.”
How to enter
If you are clamouring for that space, EG is offering one special future female leader that very opportunity.
All we need from you is your name, contact details and no more than 500 words on why you should secure a spot on the Future Female Leaders programme. Anyone who is selected must be willing to commit to full participation in the event, which includes four full dates of training.
To enter yourself, or someone else, as a candidate or to find out more about the programme, e-mail Samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk with the subject line “Future Female Leader”.
The closing date for entries is Monday, 17 June.
Ginger Public Speaking
Ginger Public Speaking is a specialist public speaking training company, helping to develop confident, authentic and influential communicators.
It has been turning inexperienced communicators, emerging leaders, chief executives and senior executives into public speaking leaders for more than a decade, and works on the principle that becoming a more influential communicator doesn’t involve pretending to be someone you’re not. For more information, visit www.gingerpublicspeaking.com.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
