International Women's Week - Women in Industry: 'What shaped your career?' Event

Speaker information

Rachel Cooper,Finance Manager. Rachel is responsible for the financial management and planning for TSRC as a whole, and administration for TSRC in Southampton, where she is based. Having qualified as an accountant with KPMG, Rachel spent 12 happy years in senior management roles in voluntary organisations ranging from the British Tinnitus Association (four people in Sheffield) to the Institute of Cancer Research (850 staff and students in South Kensington & Surrey). She has had organisational responsibility for many aspects of professional services including finance, HR and fundraising, and throughout has worked to develop services focussed on user need. Following a family orientated career break Rachel lectured part-time at Southampton Solent University before finding her niche at TSRC.

Captain Louise Bates ,Adjutant/Quartermaster Southampton University Training Corps,Louise Bates was commissioned into the Women’s Royal Army Corps after gaining a degree in Modern Languages from the University of Essex. She spent eight years as an Army Education Officer, taking in operational tours of Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Rwanda, the latter two as specialist interpreter. After a career in civilian education following her time in the Army, as a teacher of modern languages and project manager in the HE sector, she felt a calling to take up her commission again. After three years in Army recruiting, she now works in the headquarters of the local University Officer Training Corps. She has children aged 9 and 11. In her spare time she fundraises for charities supporting wounded soldiers, and runs regularly. She has a healthy aversion to DIY and gardening.

Sarah Mortiboys ,CoppaFeel! Boobette and Educational Professional,Sarah is a 34 year old educational professional who has worked across the country developing young people through PE and School Sport. She is passionate about making a difference and currently lives and works in London. In 2010, at the age of 32, Sarah was diagnosed with stage one, grade 3, breast cancer. Sarah continued to work full time during her treatment, became a big supporter of CoppaFeel! and even carried the Olympic Flame during the 2012 torch relay!

Tara Howard ,Founder of the Venus Awards for women in business,Having been brought up in the Historic Langtry Manor hotel Tara eventually left to work in London and then travelled the world. At the age of 22 she followed in her mothers footsteps became a commercial pilot and flight instructor whilst helping to produce large scale opera in Toronto and New York. It was when she was teaching flying in Boston that she was asked to come home and help run the family business. Since then the hotel has won many awards for excellence and is thriving! As a respected business woman in Dorset she relished her recent role as a Dragon at Bournemouth University. Tara is never shy of a challenge, she competed in the pier to pier swim for the British Heart Foundation, then the London to Brighton cycle ride and took her son on a trek to Everest Base Camp in aid of ASHA Nepal - a charity set up to rescue young women that have been sold into slavery. Doing all of this whilst juggling looking after her four children, Tara realised that sometimes women are not on a level playing field when it comes to business and wanted to find a way to recognise women in Business. She founded the Venus Awards in 1994. The Venus Awards were set up to recognise and reward the efforts and achievements for Women in business. The awards have been very well received generating thousands of nominations for successful business women Jackie Phillipson from P-PR Media and Tara have committed to continue recognising women around the country on a local level.