Female inspiration (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Female inspiration

8:30am Tuesday 17th July 2012 in Business By Richard Garfield

YOU’VE got to work hard to achieve your goals and to achieve your full potential.

That was the over-riding message that 300 schoolgirls from across Basingstoke and Deane learned at a special event held at The Ark Conference Centre.

The EveryGirl event was the brainwave of Liz Jackson, managing director of B2B telemarketing business Great Guns Marketing, headquartered on Basing View.

As a founding member of the Everywoman Modern Muse initiative, Liz committed herself to taking on the challenge to inspire young women to “dream huge dreams and go after those dreams.”

Liz and her fellow Modern Muse members are also committed to organise events around the UK, with the first being the EveryGirl event Liz, who herself is an inspiring role model, setting up her now multi-million business in 1998 just as she was losing her eyesight, brought a number of highly successful women to the event, including Basingstoke’s MP Maria Miller, who before entering Parliament was a director of Grey Advertising and prior to that worked for Texaco.

Also on the bill was multi-award winning Bramley entrepreneur Sam Willoughby, who set up her What’s On 4 website business, one-time Basingstoke banker Lorraine Ashover, who is now managing director of Minerva Procurement Consultancy Services, and former Queen Mary’s College student Rebecca Lloyd, who is preparing to start her career as a barrister this year.

Others from further afield, who talked about their careers and experiences, included Everywoman Athena 2011 winner Archie Archer, who is managing director of Contraband International, Aileen O’Toole, senior director eBay Europe, and Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service.

To help keep the girls on their toes, Maxine Tubb, who is a fitness instructor manager at Southampton University, livened things up with various work out sessions during the one-day event.

Delighted with how the energetic event went, Liz said: “I think it’s been really amazing.

“The participation from all of the girls is what is so encouraging.

“They have really interacted and asked loads of questions, and all of the speakers have just been really honest in what they were sharing.

“And I think the common theme was that you’ve got to work really hard to achieve whatever you want to achieve in life.

“You need to find people who are going to encourage you and act as mentors, and find something you like doing.”