EVERY year North East England Chamber of Commerce hosts an Inspiring Females conference to do exactly that, in both senses of the words. The event aims to inspire businesspeople by success stories and tales of difficulties overcome from women and men who are truly inspirational themselves.

This year’s conference was an extraordinary mix of heart-warming, at times emotionally heart-wrenching and quite brilliant insights into all the speakers’ past experiences and careers. Entitled The Power to Change, there were examples aplenty to prove there is the power to do precisely this in all of us, no matter what circumstances are thrown or opportunities presented our way.

Angela Upex, editorial director of Kingfisher Media, is a long-standing member of the Chamber’s Women’s Advisory Board and she opened the conference by outlining her own career. She had achieved great success in the media field with a number of firsts including being the first female news editor of the Evening Chronicle. Her speech was very frank and honest about the issues which face women in particular when they want to develop their careers, such as childcare commitments.

Getting more women into STEM careers is an issue which has received substantial media attention in recent years. A great example and North-East role model, Naomi Morrow, head of innovation at Sunderland Software City spoke about how this could be tackled. She had seen a chance to have the power to change in her own career and leapt at opportunities to develop her role from being a project assistant to project manager, then her current post supporting the region’s delivery of Digital Catapult. This initiative matches manufacturers to tech companies who can help those in more traditional industries exploit emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and virtual reality.

Still in her twenties, Naomi Morrow said she was often the only female at board tables and there is still a dearth of women in tech, with the current statistic being around 19 per cent. She sees massive opportunities for females in this sector as not only does your sex make you stand out, the tech world is so fast-moving there are plenty of chances to develop very quickly, as a result.

In her experience she believes a lot of girls deselect themselves from tech too early without fully understanding the advantages of it as a possible career. She works with schools and colleges to try and redress any misconceptions and also understand more fully why this happens.

Naomi also welcomed initiatives such as Go Reboot which supports people who want to work in the technology field but don’t have the skills or those they have need updating.

The conference was sponsored by Chamber Partner member Virgin Money and its head of people services Jules Smith shared her own experience and career path in HR roles around the globe. She outlined Virgin Money’s initiatives to support women’s career development including ReCareer to encourage people to return to work with a three-month induction, mentoring and ‘returnship’ programme. The importance of tackling gender bias with highlighted by Jackie Barnett, of Jackie Barnett Consulting, who was part of a Chamber working group on how to help prevent gender bias, in the investment sector dealing with clients, in particular.

Kevin Haynes, head of learning and development at Greggs, outlined its women’s career initiative which includes internal careers roadshows, mentoring and coaching. This is part of a deliberate policy to encourage more women to apply for senior jobs and is proving effective.

Guest Dawn Riley, of Handlesbanken, said: “I found the imposter syndrome session particularly interesting. It was refreshing to realise you are not the only person to sometimes feel like that in a meeting. The tips were also helpful such as when you get praise don’t always automatically say why it wasn’t just you who did something, just say ‘thank you’ and don’t talk yourself out of positive feedback.”

Estelle Blanks of Innovation Supernetwork, added “The day was great with advice on how we can learn from larger businesses and get tools to put in place to address unconscious bias, for example. Some SMEs don’t have a full HR department so they need help to address this. In our business we are looking at a women and innovation programme to identify barriers to innovation.”

Julie Underwood, Chamber international trade director said: “This conference was an inspirational day with personal stories of challenges overcome and opportunities taken. It also highlighted the importance of all our regional businesses working to reduce the gender pay gap.”

The Chamber is encouraging female members of the business community to enter or nominate people for the North East Businesswomen of the Year (WIN) awards. The closing date is August 31.