An evening with Karen Blackett OBE at Grace Belgravia

Melanie Eusabie, Max Benson and Karen Gill at everywomanClub event

21 May 2015

Yesterday evening, we were delighted to host an evening with Karen Blackett OBE, a woman whose credentials are seriously impressive: in her role as CEO of the largest media agency in the UK, MediaCom Global, Karen controls £1.2bn of media billings, manages over 1,083 people and in 2014 led the agency to win over £119m of new business.

Karen has featured twice in Management Today’s 35 Under 35, was a  finalist in the 2014 Veuve Clicquot Business Women Awards,  and has made a five-time appearance in Powerlist UK’s 100 most influential black people –  where this year, she become the first ever businesswoman to top the list. 

 

Melanie Eusabie, Max Benson and Karen Gill at everywomanClub event  everywomanClub event

 

Our everywomanClub members gathered to hear all about it at Grace Belgravia, London’s only women’s-only health, wellbeing and lifestyle Club. Of course, a beautiful venue, champagne and ambitious women under one roof, were all the makings of another spectacular everywomanClub event, but the gathering isn’t without its higher calling. According to the Clinton Foundation, women are the world’s most underserved — and undervalued — resource. At present, they make up 70% of the worlds’ poor and earn only 10% of its income, despite producing over half its food.

"Women are the largest untapped potential in the world and that's why we all should do something about it:" says Karen Gill, co-founder of everywoman, to open up the evening. The premise of everywomanClub is a haven for senior women in business to connect, but also share their wisdom with women coming advancing their career via the everywomanNetwork.

“I really don’t like talking about myself,” is the first thing Karen Blackett OBE says. “It’s actually quite hard to do, I think it’s a typically female trait. Whenever I’m given a compliment, I’ll try and push it back and speak about something else.”

Karen Blackett OBE started her career in the media industry: typically white and male, her mission now as a CEO is to ‘diversify’ the industry, allowing people from all walks of life to contribute to the sector. In fact: “MediaCom allows diversity in thinking and that’s why we’re so successful,” she says. Now, Karen purposefully seeks out mavericks that will bring fresh ideas to an industry that thrives on innovation.

She’s so committed to the cause that she set up a programme with Tim Campbell MBE and the National Apprenticeship Service to recruit people from all backgrounds: “My industry has a habit of recruiting graduates, and this can be prohibitive for quite a lot of people.  If we’re only recruiting graduates, we’re reducing our pipeline, especially if the growing number of people cannot afford to go to university. If I had my time again now in the current economic climate, my mum and dad would not have been able to send me to university.” Each apprentice has a mentor to ensure inclusion: so far MediaCom has trained approximately 40 apprentices and the company has just hired its fourth set of recruits.   

It’s clear to see Karen’s dedicated to her people, their well-being and diversity: “It’s all about the culture and it’s really about putting our people first, we have a slogan at MediaCom and it’s ‘people first, better results.”’

We would like to say thank you to Kate Percival, Club member and co-founder of Grace Belgravia for hosting the fabulous event.

 

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