Inaugural Women’s mentoring alumni event takes place

On Friday of first week, the first event for Pembroke women’s mentoring group took place. Initiated by Fellows Alice Gosling and Linda Flores, the premise behind the group is for students at Pembroke to benefit from the experience and advice of previous students. Many alumni were eager to help students in any way possible, and Friday’s meeting was an initial step in understanding how this could best be achieved. Student and attendee Georgia Brown (2019, History and Modern Languages) gave a summary of the event:

The first part of the Zoom meeting took the form of a general Q&A, giving students the opportunity to ask any questions, whether that was regarding career advice or tackling wider issues such as imposter syndrome. The alumni present represented a wide range of career fields and pathways. The mentors were:

Vivienne Artz (Chief Privacy Officer at Refinitiv,)

Fiona Herron (Founder and Executive Partner at Abacus Translation)

Tazeen Hazan (Senior Private Sector Development Specialist at the World Bank)

Bea Hollond (Chairman of F&C Investment Trust)

Monica Burch (Non-executive director at Shoosmiths)

Carina Bauer (CEO of IMEX group)

Angela Dalrymple (Director of Education, London South Bank University)

Catherine Hall (GM for global operations at Shell Trading)

The event was a large success, with great value for students wishing to explore more about the possibilities of their futures, learning from women who have been in the same position as students at Pembroke. A notable highlight was the opportunity for students to speak in break-out rooms with an alumna in the career field they are interested in, allowing for personal advice and honest experiences to be shared. Several students were able to follow up personally with alumnae after the event.

Alongside this invaluable chance to learn about future career possibilities, also came the feeling of community that the talk inspired. Pembroke celebrated 40 years of women last year; some of those very first women from 1979 gave their own advice to current students during the talk. Being the first meeting of the mentoring group, there is great excitement to see the possibilities of what can be achieved moving forward.

All students and alumni are welcome to benefit from the mentoring and networking opportunities of our alumni community. Simply join our LinkedIn Mentoring group here to see the over 400 alumni who would be delighted to hear from you and Pembroke Links on the website to view videos created by alumni in several industries about how they built their careers.