Clearview National December 2019 - Issue 217 | Page 15

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customers or seeing someone within my team
flourish when I’ve had a part in developing
and encouraging them – it’s various things
that make me happy to do what I do.
What advice would you give yourself
at the start of your career?
Believe in your own abilities; be self-aware,
understanding your strengths and weaknesses
and how to capitalise on that; work hard and
be tenacious; listen and absorb.
Who are your role models?
No-one that you would have heard of, but
I’ve had various bosses over the year or people
who I’ve interacted with, and thought “they
do such and such really well” and I want to
learn from them. A great example was one
of the lead partners at KPMG. He had the
ability to identify the key points that really
mattered from a very brief overview of a
report or meeting, and had a knack to get that
across simply and succinctly. It’s a skill that
is highly valuable when operating at Board
level and one I continue to work on and try
to emulate.
but because I’m a big believer that businesses
are better when the people contributing have
different viewpoints and experiences that they
can bring to bear, and diversity often helps
with this.
The more businesses can do to ensure their
policies and procedures, such as maternity
pay, support everyone including women,
the more it will help get rid of the archaic
boys’ club perception of the industry. This
will help businesses to attract and retain a
diverse range of talented people, including
women, that will make a difference to their
businesses.
Do you think there should be
more women in fenestration?
Women can bring something different to
the table. But I don’t believe in diversity for
diversity’s sake. And there are loads of fantastic
women who can act as role models in the
industry already. If I take our GGF Marketing
& Communications Committee, there are
some fantastic women on there like Dawn
Stockwell from VEKA, Charlotte Mercer
from Edgetech, and Kristian Chalmers from
Pilkington.
Do you think men and women have
different qualities that make them
better suited to different roles?
Very occasionally but it obviously depends
on the individual man or woman concerned.
A fitter is more likely to be a man because it
requires a certain level of strength and manual
jobs often appeal more to men, but there are
plenty of capable (and physically strong!)
women out there that could match what a
man can do. When it comes to leadership
roles, there is no one size fits all, and it’s about
what an individual can bring to the role. As
I alluded to before, within my management
team, I want a mix of people with different
experiences and skills – that way the sum
of our parts is greater than our individual
contributions.
What have been your biggest
and proudest achievements
in your career?
There’s not one particular moment or
achievement, as such – what makes me
proudest at work is feeling that I’ve made a
difference, whether that’s launching a new
product that will be of real benefit to my
What are you working on at the
moment that you’d like to share
with the Clearview readers?
We have lots of exciting projects on the go
to make our existing services even better and
to provide new and innovative products to
the marketplace, so keep an eye out for them
as we’re ready with the big reveals next year.
More recently, you’ll have seen that we’ve re-
branded GGFi to Installsure. We’ve used that
as an opportunity to get across to installers
that we’re easy to deal with, we understand
what they do, are great value for money,
and will take the hassle out of getting their
insurance sorted, which, let’s face it, none of
us really want to do!
Is there anything else
you’d like to add?
One real positive for me has been the
reception from my colleagues, Board
members and the industry since I announced
that I was pregnant (and is now very
obviously the case with my ever-expanding
bump…). Everyone has been fantastically
supportive and encouraging. I’ve even been
offered a non-executive role at another
business despite the pregnancy. This has
reassured me that businesses are progressing in
terms of equality and diversity is welcomed,
even when it is slightly inconvenient.
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