Celebrating the crème de la crème of Women in Sales
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of attending the inaugural Women in Sales Awards which were held at prestigious Savoy Hotel in London. I was delighted to be in the company of my peers from companies such as PepsiCo, IBM, ING, Colt & Oracle and the evening was a fantastic celebration of all the amazing women who thrive in a sales role.
Encouraging diversity in the workplace and on boards of directors is increasingly seen as a way of making companies stronger in the modern business environment. One key area that I have focused on during my career is that of encouraging women to enter and achieve great success in traditionally male-dominated fields such as technology and sales. The Women in Sales Awards were created to bring a greater awareness of the need for gender diversity in sales and executive leadership teams and so I was delighted to be asked to support these awards as a mentor for one of the winners, Kelly Holmes from Neopost.
On a personal note, I am absolutely delighted to have participated in the Women in Sales awards. These awards bring a greater awareness of the need for gender diversity in sales and in executive leadership teams. I am relishing the opportunity of working with my mentee, Kelly to greater understand the opportunities and challenges she faces and comparing notes from my career.
The provisional timeline for the 2014 awards has already published so if you are interested in submitting an entry please be aware that nominations open in January. The first lady to submit an entry will win a Kindle Fire HD. However, the deadline for nominations is not until the 22nd of September 2014. The finalists will be announced on October 2nd and, according to the Awards’ twitter account @wisawards, the judging day on the 30th of October 2014 will be held at the Sky Bar.
The awards ceremony itself will take place in December 2014 and although the exact date and venue to be confirmed I am sure the setting will be just as glamorous as it was this year. I look forward to meeting next year’s finalists, judges and other mentors at the awards next December. In the meantime, I will post insights from the mentoring adventure between Kelly Holmes and myself over the coming months.
The GFT Group is building on its successes and is growing at a phenomenal rate not just in the UK but also across Europe, the US and Brazil. Anyone, male or female, excelling in a technology or financial services sale-oriented role who would be interested in exploring an amazing career with GFT should drop me a line at hnts@gft.com.
By Helen Thomas (@HelenLTh) Sales Director Enterprise and Services, GFT UK (@GFT_EN)
