Women in Consulting – Forging Your Own Path

LinkedIn

The Young MCA held an event earlier this month at IBM’s Southbank office in London, which three of the Managementors team attended. The event focused around Women in Consulting and business psychology. Speaking at the event were Helen Frewin, Talent Director at Totem Consulting, and Natasha Abajian, a postgraduate Business Psychology student from City University, who is now a senior leadership consultant at Deloitte UK.

Natasha Abajian provided an insight into women in the workplace and discussed the findings of her dissertation research, which looked at the factors that contributed to holding women back from reaching their full potential at work. The research discovered that visibility, trust and acceptance were critical to a woman achieving promotions, and advocated women using their social capital to reach the top executive ranks in an organisation. Natasha also spoke in-depth about the negative impact of key theories, such as the glass ceiling and imposter syndrome, and the positive effects of being authentic in the workplace for women to have a successful career.

Helen Frewin, the key speaker at the event, delivered a session which was designed to prevent women from holding themselves back and provided tips on how to think more positively. There was a key focus on turning ‘unhelpful’ thoughts into ‘more helpful’ thoughts, using a variety of techniques to build confidence. Helen further discussed Natasha’s point around building authenticity in the workplace and encouraged attendees to find their purpose and passion for their job role.

The consultants were advised to build their authenticity by listening, asking questions and giving advice when working on-site with clients.

The event was well attended with around 80 people and provided a great opportunity to network with other Young MCA members.