International Women's Day at Cliftons

Cliftons Support for International Women’s Day

As an organisation, Cliftons proudly champions diversity and inclusion. We do this through a range of HR policies, our everyday actions, and also encouraging a mix of speakers with diverse backgrounds when we work with clients via our event management services.

Our goal is to work towards equality and equity every day, but International Women’s Day serves as an important opportunity to recognise women’s achievements, resilience, and progress towards gender equality. This year’s theme, ‘Count Her In’, reminds us of the importance of acknowledging and valuing the contributions of every woman.

‘Count Her In’ is also about promoting women and creating more opportunities for women to participate in the workforce and continue to progress their careers throughout changing life circumstances. We recently held a panel discussion with two of our recently promoted staff members, Louise Drappier who has moved from a Venue Manager in Sydney to Project Manager, Exams, and Merisha Haindl who has transitioned from a Venue Manager in Wellington to Customer Enablement Specialist. Here’s more from Louise and Merisha about why they love working in events, supporting others, and what ‘count her in’ means to them.

What is the most rewarding aspect about your role?

For both Louise and Merisha, the rewards of a career in events comes from bringing everything together for clients, especially when there’s a lot of elements to bring together.

Louise says, “When the day goes as smoothly as we’ve planned it, that’s incredibly satisfying. For example, we have very complex multi-site exams that take months to plan and lots of work goes into it. Before the exam starts it’s stressful, we wonder whether it’s going to go well or not. When it goes smoothly and our client is happy, it’s so rewarding to know that all the hard work is worth it.”

Similarly, Merisha says that one of the challenges of events is that a lot of things change throughout the day, but the satisfaction of managing this is an element of the job she enjoys. “People change their minds on their requirements or things happen that you don’t expect. I always think it’s very rewarding to have the support of the team to conquer those little issues without anybody else noticing,” explains Merisha.

What’s a significant challenge you’ve overcome in your career?

Like many women, Louise found becoming a mum and trying to find that balance between work and personal life to be a big challenge. Cliftons is pleased to have been able to support Louise through this transition and empower her to be successful both at work and as a parent. “Like many new parents, I had to evaluate my options and think about whether to resign and be a stay-at-home full time mum and move out of Sydney to buy a house. But I loved my job, and my career is important to me, it’s very rewarding. I was very lucky I was able to get the best of both worlds and work remotely,” she says.

For Merisha, the biggest challenge she has had to overcome was being a young woman working in event operations. “When I started my career working full-time in events in Europe, I was quite young. So my age was a challenge back then because I was managing people all older than me. It’s a learning by doing process for some of it – I have made mistakes and learned along the way. Being able to now be confident in my abilities and in my decisions is something I’m proud of,” says Merisha.

Similarly, Merisha also recognises other hurdles that are holding back female participation and progression in the workplace. “I studied psychology and what pops into my mind is some statistics that most managers are men and women don’t apply for managerial roles because of confidence. So I think encouraging wherever I can for the team here to take on supervisor responsibilities and have the confidence to step into bigger roles. That’s what pops into my mind with ‘Count Her In’,” Merisha explains.

Thanks to Louise and Merisha for sharing their thoughts. We’d love to hear how your organisation is driving change this year for International Women’s Day and other ways we can all ‘Count Her In’.