Bright Spark and Mover – Brid Horan of the 30% Club Ireland

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:58 — 91.5MB)

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Brid Horan is on the Steering Committee of 30% Club Ireland. She is a non executive director at FBD and DCU and is Former Deputy CEO of the ESB (the Electricity Supply Board) and has had an impressive career which she talks about in the podcast.

She has always been an advocate for women and their career development. She explains about the work of the 30% Club as well as providing serious sound career advice both for women in their careers and also senior managers in companies both male and female. 30% is not a quota but rather the point of critical mass where a minority start to have a voice.  Women although 51% of the population are still a minority when it comes to representation on boards and senior management in business, in politics, broadcasting and in banking. The motto of the 30% is ‘growth through diversity’ and they are all about ‘accelerating gender balance at all levels’. Change is happening Brid Horan believes but it is just ‘at a glacial pace’.

Brid believes that as a woman in the workforce,  “you can do way more than you think you can, but remember it takes time to get there”.

People have enormous talent and they should believe in themselves and be willing to take the next step in their careers she says. “You will be amazed with what you can do!” She advises women to stretch themselves.  Be willing to take the next step, and that may feel a bit risky.”
She advises women not to let the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

“We wait for the ideal solution, the ideal career or the ideal house…. but I am a great believer in finding something better than your current situation and taking a step towards that, then the next step will emerge. Women hold themselves back by waiting for everything to be perfect.”

Be prepared to take that promotion she says. “You will grow into it and you will bring your own flavor to it and your own growth path.”

Brid Horan is a great believer in action and decision making with 80% of the information. “In business sometimes you can be inclined to wait for 100% of the information. Momentum is important, get things moving and you will make progress. You don’t get things done by standing still.”

Cross company mentoring is an area that the 30% Club have been working on and according to Brid Horan the learning can go both ways.  She also believes in encouraging women to have honest conversations with their male bosses about their careers.

Another of Brid’s beliefs is that there is a real challenge for parents to rear their girls to feel powerful. The 30% Club are firm believers in encouraging more young women to study for careers in STEM -science, technology, engineering and mathematics and are investing in initiatives in this area.

@30percentclubie is their handle on twitter

Enjoy the podcast and let us know your reaction on Twitter, or by sending us an email.

Angela Mezzetti
Follow Me
Latest posts by Angela Mezzetti (see all)