by Alison Foster Head of Development Leopard Films
The Argonon ladies and gents were out in force recently – along with business leaders, Olympic champions and cabinet ministers – to attend the Women Of The Future Awards.
Argonon had sponsored this event. I was very honoured to be asked along to celebrate this humbling array of talent. It was a night of fabulous frocks, great and inspiring company and lots and lots of brilliant success stories. We all looked on in a mix of pride, awe and emotion as we heard the nominees’ stories. This astonishingly diverse group of women had risen through the ranks (often in male dominated fields) and they had grafted and then grafted some more to become top business leaders, community activists, authors with million pound book deals, entrepreneurs, professionals, scientists, engineers, and arts, culture and media moguls. What impressed me most was how irrepressible all the nominees were in a multitude of different ways. My favourite was the girl who sailed the Indian Ocean solo at the age of 24 all the while keeping her website updated and interacting with her social media followers – talk about multi-tasking!
Judging from the inclusive and gracious speeches the award winners gave, what defined these women was their desire to pass on their wealth of knowledge and experience to the next generation. Mentoring was definitely the big stand out thought of the evening and the sense that success means so much more when it is shared.
With all the amazing talent on display you might wonder if we need an event to honour women’s achievements seeing as there are so many astonishingly talented women achieving so much across the board.
I guess what proved to me that we do, were my journeys to and from the awards ceremony. On the way to the event I found out that the Church of England had rejected the introduction of women bishops (Really? In Britain in 2012?), and on my taxi ride home when my very polite and courteous driver found out where I’d been began to question me about whether us ladies really should be pursuing “our own careers”. Wasn’t our role in life wasn’t best served bringing up the kids whilst our husbands go out to work, he asked?” (Erm, no, not on the evidence of what I had just seen!)
The Women of The Future Awards are a dazzling (and that’s not just from the wall to wall sequinned frocks) and incredibly important event. I know that all of us from Argonon who attended felt incredibly honoured to have been in the company of such an inspirational bunch of people.