Celebrating International Women's Day with Nicole Jones
Tell us about yourself and your role. What you do and what challenges does it bring?
I am a financial services and talent coach at Davies and I work with apprentices on insurance based financial services apprenticeships. I get to interact with loads of different people across multiple facets of insurance, which is both interesting and challenging. I moved into this role in January 2020, two months prior to Covid and full lockdown, and like many, had to adapt to remote working.
What challenges are there for women looking for leadership roles in the insurance and financial services sector? And how is Davies hoping to tackle these?
Financial services historically has been a male dominated industry, however that is slowly changing. We should pay closer attention to how women are being recruited into financial services and what roles they are being recruited for specifically.
One of the things that Davies is doing to combat this is the Women in Leadership programme, which is something that Carolyn Blunt, our Growth and Success Director is incredibly passionate about. She was a real pioneer in this, allowing there to be a focus on women.
How have some of the women on the Women in Leadership programme developed so far?
The feedback that we are getting from employers on women on the programme has been incredible – they’ve seen a real boost in the women’s confidence, ability to stand up, own space and get more involved in meetings. These women are seeing a real shift to owning their own opinions, feeling comfortable and confident to voice those opinions even if they are the only one doing so.
Is there a woman that has inspired you professionally or otherwise to work hard and get to where you want to be?
From a personal point of view my mum and my sister – they are incredibly driven and just miracle women. From a young age mum showed me how to balance work and family life. She’d work four days a week, take my sister and I to any clubs out of school and then studied accountancy qualifications in the evening. She taught me that if you want something you have to go out and achieve it.
Professionally, Alison Neate, an external Business Leader and Coach inspires me. She gave me invaluable one to one mentoring during the Women in Insurance programme which was life changing and changed the whole course of my career.
Connect with Nicole Jones on LinkedIn