MENSCH HITS THE HIGH STREET TO PRESENT AT HOT WOMEN CEREMONY
WAS Miriam González Durántez too busy preparing for her move to US law firm Dechert to attend the Red’s Hot Women Awards yesterday?
No – the wife of the deputy Prime Minister had an appointment with her children’s nursery that couldn’t be moved. And since these are the awards that celebrate the achievements of working women, said Red magazine’s editor Sam Baker, the diary clash was freely accommodated at the afternoon presentation, which Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, CEO and chairman of Shine Group, personally requested to judge for the second year in a row.
Burberry’s Midas-like CEO Angela Ahrendts won the fashion category, while Fairtrade director Harriet Lamb cycled from Tower Hill to collect her eco award from Pearl Lowe, the wife of ex-Supergrass drummer Danny Goffey who designs a fashion range for budget retailer Peacocks. “It is hard to be ethical because of the low prices,” Lowe told The Capitalist. “But I have visited Peacock’s factories and am satisfied with what I have seen.”
Also coming out of the closet as a fan of the high street was Louise Mensch MP. “I am the worst cook in the world – that’s why God invented M&S,” said Mensch on Marc Bolland’s business, where she buys all her food and most of her clothes. Not the dress she wore to present the award to Alex Crawford of Sky News, though – that came from value brand Asos. Teamed with a designer jacket, naturally.
LEAD BY EXAMPLE
DEUTSCHE Bank managing director Pamela Smith initially turned down the role of chairing the bank’s women’s network several times.
But when she was informed that she was Deutsche Bank’s only female MD in global banking in London, Smith was so shocked she said yes – and has since become an evangelist for female progression in the City.
Smith was joined by Schroders high-flier Rosemary Banyard to address 60 female fund managers at the inaugural Women in Investment event hosted by Edison Investment Access at The Fleming Collection.
“Be yourself in whatever you do,” advised Banyard, before taking a turn around the gallery’s Anne Redpath exhibition.
VIRGIN TERRITORY
REMEMBER Greg Secker, the Flying Trader who traded the money markets from inside a helicopter above the Thames in June? Those £15,000 profits were donated to the Virgin Unite Foundation, and Secker is today flying out to South Africa to see first-hand how the money will be used at the Ubuntu Education Fund.
At the invitation of Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson himself, no less, who will show Secker and his partner Katherine his game reserve by jeep as he outlines his ambitions for Northern Rock.