This year’s International Women’s Day celebrates women’s achievements, raises awareness about discrimination, and drives for gender equality and equity. “Imagine a gender-equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated.” International Women's Day 2023.
Here at Cosmic, we have worked together over the past 12 years to lead and drive our successful work, while building a diverse and inclusive team, which provides multiple opportunities for women in roles across the business and in each of our services. Cosmic today employs as many women as men, and we support our female colleagues in many ways providing training, support, and coaching.
Our particular focus has been recognising female talent both inside our business and in our local networks and ensuring that we are able to provide inspiration and motivation to women to reach for their next career steps and build their professional networks.
As well-recognised speakers at business events locally, regionally, and nationally, we welcome every opportunity to relay our own experiences of career development, and to encourage women to invest in their development and career opportunities.
For both of us, the road to Chief Executive has proved challenging in many ways, and even now we can relate very clearly to the imposter-syndrome issues, and the lack of faith people can often display when it comes to major business decisions. But we firmly believe that our track record, particularly as women running a business together, have demonstrated that a new leadership style is flourishing at Cosmic.
And so, celebrating International Women’s Day today and all that it signifies is a wonderful opportunity to remind ourselves, our colleagues, and all of our contacts how important this stuff still is.
Together we can forge women's equality. Collectively we can all #EmbraceEquity.
Julie Hawker and Kate Doodson – Joint CEOs of Cosmic