International Women's Day 2023

To kick off Steer’s International Women’s Day events, we had an inspiring seminar on March 6 featuring presentations by Silvia Mejia Reza and Sofia Arroyo from our Mexico City office.

The talks addressed how to build personal confidence and manage work/life balance, with both speakers providing leadership through personal example and offering advice on how to build skills in these areas.

On confidence building, Silvia, an Associate at Steer, described the challenges she faced when she joined the company, having previously worked in a very different sector. She reflected that after the excitement of being appointed – she had fears of failure given the big change. Silvia explained how she used the knowledge and skills base she had developed in her previous job to build her confidence in the new role.

“I decided to think positively. This was a new experience, and I was going to learn new things,” she said. “Now I have been at Steer for six years, and I have learned so much, it has been great!”

When providing valuable tips on confidence building, Silvia explained that it’s important to visualise success, erase negative thoughts and believe in your ability to improve. These, along with surrounding yourself with the right people and taking care of yourself, are the keys to gaining ground in self-esteem.

Sofía, an Associate Director at Steer, spoke pragmatically about maintaining work-life balance and managing shifting priorities throughout her career. From being a creative and socially active student to a working mother, she described the challenges of maintaining boundaries amid competing responsibilities.

Sofía gave recommendations of how to achieve a sustainable work/life balance based on her experience: defining her overall priorities (both at home and work), taking steps to ensure she remains passionate about her work, setting weekly objectives and sticking to boundaries whilst accepting that in some areas it is necessary to be flexible.

She acknowledged that work/life balance can be especially difficult for women who often take on the lion’s share of domestic responsibilities and childcare while at the same time climbing the career ladder.

“For me right now: number one is my health, and number two is to be there with my kids while they are choosing their own paths and living their lives…while I continue to improve myself professionally,” she said of her own priorities.

She also said how important it is to ask for help from colleagues when you need it. She noted how incredibly supportive her colleagues are – “no one ever says no when I ask for help”.

Sofia reminded us that it is essential to accept that you won’t always get your balance right, so we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves when that happens!

On Tuesday 7th, March, as part of International Women’s Day Week, Women in Steer hosted an engaging talk on career development from Emily Alter (a recent recruit who leads on Equity and Inclusion on projects in our North America business) and Lisa Martin, our UK Managing Director, who has been with the company for over 25 years.

While the two women have had very different careers, they both agreed on some of the key ingredients for successful professional development: finding inspirational role models in the workplace, learning and innovating, embracing opportunities and taking risks.

Emily, who is based in our Oakland office, detailed the start of her career in environmental planning in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she learned the importance of balancing competing objectives within communities and community engagement; early career lessons that have maintained salience through the years.

Emily emphasised the importance of proactively getting involved at work and said how influential a senior colleague in one of her early jobs had been In helping her develop her career. 

She ended by highlighting how life outside work has influenced her career, recommending that we should all look out for and get involved in activities that interest us and which use our skills in order to grow both inside and outside the workplace. 

“Do whatever you can outside of work. I do community organising outside of work, and I find that really helps me think about my career not just as a job but as part of a life that I really care about,” she said.

During her talk, Lisa Martin outlined how she chose Steer to begin her career due to its location and friendly atmosphere, but soon learned that this comparatively small consultancy could take her to big things.

She joined us in 1995 and is now UK Managing Director, leaving us only for a brief stint in 2020 to head up Heathrow’s Surface Access Strategy team. Lisa talked about building our brand and capability in behaviour change/ Transportation Demand Management, initially in the UK and subsequently in North America, as well as her steps in taking on business unit leadership.  

She emphasised the importance of building an external profile to promote your work, having confidence to speak up for your own ambition, and, most importantly, having passion for your work.

For Women in Steer’s final webinar marking International Women’s Day, we had three speakers to talk about confidence building and networking, rounding off a week of top-notch presentations from some of our leading employees.

Hannah Thomas, Joint Head of UK Planning at Steer, started the session with tips on growing confidence and shared her experiences of how she built up her own confidence incrementally over the years.

Hannah said she had worked hard to develop strategies to combat imposter syndrome and outlined the benefits of bringing strength from other areas of life, like hobbies and family, into your role at work.

She shared her ‘three Ps’ of practice, preparation and ‘probably right’ (leaning into positive feedback and not discounting it offhand) for boosting self-esteem.

“You don’t have to be a naturally confident person to build confidence in your role at work, and I hope these tips can help you going forward no matter what stage of your career,” she said.

Our first speaker on networking, Steer Director Nicola Kane, described how integral networking has been in her career journey from a shy graduate in 1999 to a role where she’s responsible for developing Steer’s client relationships in the north of England.

After conducting a poll with attendees which found many think networking is awkward and daunting, Nicola said that networking is something that requires work but can also reap big rewards in unexpected ways down the line. It’s not about collecting contacts but growing relationships.

She encouraged attendees to utilise LinkedIn, get involved in societies and groups outside of work and put the time into maintaining networks as part of good professional practice.

“I don’t think about it as a transactional thing,” Nicola said. “But just getting to know people, finding out a bit more about them and what they do, knowing at some point or another, your paths are likely to cross again. You never know where and when.”

Speaking from Connecticut, US, our third speaker Julia Wean also used her presentation to encourage women to reframe networking as something organic rather than forced.

Citing her experiences at college and in different workplaces, Julia said that networking should be about expanding work capabilities, buildings friendships and taking advantage of coincidental encounters.

“I still run into people from my networks in my first job, and I still talk to my friends from grad school.

One of her top tips was to approach networking without expecting anything from it, it can just be having fun, building friendships and getting exposed to people who are interested in the same things that you're interested in.

“It can often just be to catch up and find out what they’re up to”.

“Not every conversation will end in an identified opportunity, but it does help to build our relationship and our profile.”