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    A new book for the new year

    Mrs Moneypenny's new book 'Careers advice for ambitious women'I was delighted to receive a copy of “Careers Advice for Ambitious Women” by Mrs Moneypenny, courtesy of her co-writer Heather McGregor. This is an excellent book for the new year as it encourages the reader, male or female, to approach their life with fresh energy for personal development.

    Mrs Moneypenny begins with a chapter which should please all educationalists: the importance of first class qualifications. “What you know” is the foundation of any career and the more prestigious the educational establishment from which these are gained, the better.

    In her entertaining presentation at our 2010 Speech Day, Mrs Moneypenny paid Roedean a great compliment by sharing her pleasure that her old school, St Mary’s Hall, had merged with us. This meant, she stated, that she could now put Roedean on her CV, which she felt gave an added boost to her many impressive qualifications.

    Networking comes next in her list of how to get on, and here she shares many intriguing tips about how to make contacts with people that matter and then the importance of staying in touch with them. I particularly enjoyed her explanation on how to gatecrash career enhancing parties: you will have to buy the book to learn how!

    Roedean has an excellent global network of women with varied and significant careers; I hope our girls will take note of Mrs Moneypenny’s advice on the value of keeping in touch and, indeed, of giving a hand up to those on the career ladder below you.

    In words which I suspect will be echoed tomorrow by Eleanor Mills of The Sunday Times, our Head Girl’s Speaker for this month, the reader is told not to expect to have it all. Eleanor will be addressing this issue under the title, “The truth we hide from career women”: it will be interesting for our ambitious students to hear Eleanor speak on the challenge that career women today face of balancing work and home life. In the “Careers Guide for Ambitious Women” we are urged to set out career targets, to identify our priorities, and to organise our lives according to these.

    A woman who might seem to do it all is Helena Morrisey who is given several pages of print by Mrs Moneypenny. Helena is CEO of Newton Investment Management, on the board of the Royal Academy of Arts, and has recently set up the 30% Club which aims to raise the percentage of female representation on UK corporate boards to 30% by 2015. On top of all this paid and pro bono work, Mrs Morrisey has found time to have no less than nine children. It is very satisfying to see that she was awarded a CBE for Services to UK Business in the New Year’s Honours List last week.

    Mrs Moneypenny ends her book with the words she shared with the Roedean girls when she spoke in 2010. She states that there are no such words as “I can’t do it” for today’s young people. However, she insists that you must add one word to this - alone: “I can’t do it alone”. In order to be able to do it all, you need to enlist the support of others – true for men and women - but particularly applicable to women who will continue to need to balance a career with family life.

    At the beginning of the new year this book is very much worth a read: it will help you write your list of resolutions for the months ahead and encourage you to find the energy to achieve these. I urge you to pick up a copy.

    By Frances King, Headmistress at Tuesday, 10 January 2012

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