INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY SPECIAL 2023 - Claire Brewerton

To celebrate International Women's Day, we interviewed some influential women to share with you all about why IWD is important to them.

What’s your name? Claire Brewerton 

What’s your profession? I run an award winning telephone answering business 

What’s your business? Virtual Business Centre 

Where is this business based? We’re based in Brinkworth, Wiltshire in a lovely renovated barn 

If you have a team – do you have a gender mix? Are there challenges in achieving this? What are they? Our team are gender mixed and in terms of challenges yes, we do have some. Every one of our employees receives the same training but we have some clients that have a preconceived perception of who will be answering their calls for them. 

What does #embracequity mean to you? For me I think that striving to embrace equity is multi faceted. I had a conversation with one of my friends only recently about the title of “working mum” as opposed to “working parent”.  

At Virtual Business Centre we are inclusive for all of our team and we try to support them in whatever way I possibly can. I like to work on the basis that if a phrase can’t be flipped to embrace all of my team members, then it is a phrase that should not be used within the office. 

In which area do you support women? I support Women and Work and Business. 

Which women have inspired you over the last year generally? Two women have inspired me recently. The first woman is Stephanie Millward. I was lucky enough to be able to hear her speak at an awards evening at my son’s school and she came across as incredibly motivating and inspiring to the audience that she was talking to. I’m also inspired by Kate Middleton, The Princess of Wales for her commitment to improving the mental health and emotional wellbeing of our children and young people. 

What do you think are the biggest issues facing women this year and beyond? I suspect that the issues are the same or similar as they have been in previous years for women: the gender pay gap, gender bias and sadly women feeling unsafe in public spaces always seem to be some of the issues being experienced. 

Why do you think it's important to have an International Women's Day? I think that International Women’s Day gives us time to reflect on the progress that has been made and it let’s us have a global day to celebrate womens achievements in business and in life generally. 
 

For more information on Claire and Virtual Business Centre visit www.virtualbusinesscentre.com