Released On 08 July 2019
News from Cityparents HQ - July 2019
I am delighted to introduce the summer edition of the Cityparents newsletter and my first as its editor. I’ve now been with the Cityparents team for two months and what an exciting time to have joined.
In May, we opened the annual application window for our mentoring scheme and since then have successfully matched nearly 50 pairs; in June we published our second podcast, this time with the formidable and compelling Baroness Shami Chakrabarti; and we're now celebrating Cityparents’ 100th corporate member. What a fantastic milestone this is and we think real evidence that City businesses are beginning to understand that supporting people with how they manage their personal and professional lives is paramount to retaining and developing talent.
We're pleased to welcome NATIXIS as our 100th corporate member and in our lead interview, we'll hear from Ali Mirkhani and Britt Johnston from NATIXIS about why they decided the firm should join Cityparents, and how it fits with their own impressive D&I strategy.
We've also spent some time listening carefully to your feedback and considering how to expand the range of voices that we share in our Cityparents communications. Therefore, we’d love to hear from YOU if you would be willing to share your experiences with us. You can be in any role, at any level of seniority, and we’d like to hear from men as well as women.
Here are a few ways in which you can get involved:
- Our popular Cityparents Blogs feature members who bravely and openly share their feelings and experiences of being a working parent in the City. We’re looking for new bloggers, so if you are interested in becoming a regular contributor please contact me with a sample blog of around 500 words by August 1st. If selected, you would be asked to write 3 / 4 blogs in the coming 12 months.
- Our new Cityparents Life Podcast series will feature members talking about their personal approach to balancing a busy job with home life. Example topics may be a particular career path or unusual flexible working arrangement, mentoring, managing additional challenges at home, how you look after your mental or physical wellbeing or an interesting use of technology, but we're open to ideas so do let us know yours. If you’d like to be interviewed for the podcast, please get in touch!
- We’re seeing increasing media interest from journalists who are keen to hear from working parents about their experiences. Most recently it has been about Shared Parental Leave or generally how the role of the father is changing, but the angles will vary of course. If you’d be willing to talk to a journalist, whether you’d like to be quoted or not, please also drop me a line. If you express your interest, we will run any potential opportunities by you and you’d be able to accept or decline and gather any necessary internal approvals, although we’d need to be ready to respond quickly, as journalists’ deadlines are often quite tight.
Finally, if you have any feedback on this newsletter or any other of Cityparents’ communications, or any suggestions for future topics please do get in touch. I hope you will be taking a well-earned break over the summer – and do read on for top tips for managing the long school break in the newsletter!
We look forward to seeing many of you at an event; in the meantime, don’t forget you can get in touch by emailing any of the team or chatting with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And please don't forget to follow our LinkedIn page!
Anna Richards
Head of Communications and Marketing
anna@cityparents.co.uk