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For over a decade, Ginger has been helping leaders to find their unique brilliance, and giving them the tools to be the confident, authentic leaders they were always supposed to be. We consciously work with women to overcome prevalent internal and external barriers that can drain their confidence and hold them back from their potential. Nothing leaves us more satisfied than supporting capable leaders to find the fire in their bellies and stir up their inner spice!
With our leadership communications courses, we’ve found ourselves in awe of the dozens of women who have transported out of their comfort zone and into the heat of the spotlight. Because, truly, it’s only when we break free from our insecurities that we can show up as strong leaders.
Our programmes help participants to identify their story worth sharing, to let go of fear, to stand proudly in ownership of their message. What we’ve seen is that, while the stories of these women are profound in themselves, the experience of telling their stories has a transformational impact. At the Game Changers Summit at the House of Commons, rousing stories were delivered in front of an audience of leadership peers. Cheeks were left sore from laughter and wet from tears in a room turned electric from the energy of support. Everyone in that room believed in one another, because they saw with their own eyes these women breaking free from themselves and knew, in this room of peers, that if these women could do it, so could they. Inside all of us, there is a story that’s bursting to come out and become a source of inspiration. Fire ignites fire.
We’ve been looking back at some of these phenomenal women who have used our courses to supercharge their leadership. Their stories are below and can be linked to here:
Archana Mohan
Thea Wilson
Sam McAlister
Debra Charles
HH Sheikha Intisar
But first, some thoughts on success…
Margaret Cho
Success is a subjective term. It could be measured against money, career, social circles, social impact, or any number of measures. Although we proudly support female leaders, at Ginger we prefer not to think of success in gender terms, because what is success to one woman may not be considered success to the next, and on the other hand one male and one female may have the same values of success. Instead, we like to think in both individual and organisational terms, and our courses are based on our core principles of success:
At Ginger, our paramount success is seen in inspiring the brilliance within individual leaders who journey through our programs. This inspiration is not just a personal achievement; it equips them to ignite the same spark in others.
We consider it a success when you find and fully embrace your unique story, standing confidently in your authenticity and sharing your message with conviction.
Our success is mirrored in your ability to communicate effectively and impactfully, influencing and inspiring those around you with clarity and purpose.
Success for us is when you discover the power and impact of servant leadership, understanding that true leadership is about empowering and uplifting others.
We see success in your personal transformation, where you uncover new aspects of yourself, leading to a deeper and more genuine engagement with what truly matters to you.
We measure our success by the growth of your confidence and presence, enabling you to connect with and captivate your audience.
Success is evident when you cultivate deeper empathy and forge authentic connections, fostering collaboration and positive change.
Ultimately, our success is in helping you realize and achieve your full leadership potential, leading with vision, integrity, and a strong sense of purpose.
Success is achieved when we help leaders effectively communicate and implement strategic change, ensuring clarity and coherence in the transition process.
Our success is seen when we see the entire organisation aligns with its strategic goals, creating a unified direction and shared understanding
across all levels
We measure success by our ability to help teams understand and embrace their crucial role in delivering the company’s strategic objectives
Success is also about amplifying diverse
voices within the organization, cognizing that a range of perspectives drives corporate success and innovation.
We aim to foster a culture where leaders are aligned with corporate goals but driven by a sense of purpose, blending personal values with organizational objectives.
Our success is reflected in the increased value brought by each team member, equipped to deliver better results through improved communication skills and a clear understanding of their impact on corporate objectives.
Thea drives change by designing education that meets the needs of a modern-day healthcare sector. She has collaborated with world-leading and inspiring innovators in healthcare to co-create ground-breaking educational content and is part of a team that’s recognised as global leaders within interventional cardiology medical technologies.
“You’ll be lucky if you’re here tomorrow”. That was the prognosis given to Thea by her oncologist. “You’re very, very sick.” Thea works in the hospital sector as an educational research, design and innovation lead, but that day, she was a patient. “I still today don’t know those emotions that I felt.”
This excrutiating challenge was hers, but, Thea advises: “With cancer comes great responsibility”. She knew she needed to be strong, for her family and for her friends. As the hospital team did their work, Thea used that strength to fight off the cancer that was coursing through her veins and plagued her for years. Until, finally, she got the all clear.
Her story doesn’t end there. Because then came a new challenge. Thea was left searching for a new sense of purpose. Despite her career achievements, she suffered from imposter syndrome and had always lacked confidence around other women, working in a male-dominated.
She never imagined that on her journey, she would wind up pole dancing in the House of Commons, but that’s what she did at Game Changers. After years of treatment and testing, Thea used pole dancing – one of the most intensive sports out there – to re-build. And through the Leaders Voice course, this was how she would come to perfectly demonstrate her experience of overcoming both adversity and expectations in her talk: ‘Get a grip – facing fear and finding strength’. Thea had taken up pole dancing just 12 months before her athletic performance in front of a conference room full of women. “Doing that in front of them, and removing the stigma of what pole dance actually is, I don’t think I realized the power of the story that I was telling at that time, because it was happening to me.”
Since her experience at Game Changers, Thea has ‘embraced her inner Ginger’. Last year she competed in the British Pole Dance Instructor Championships, coming second in the masters category. “I was totally shocked. I would not have dreamed I could perform in front of judges if I hadn’t have had that experience in the House of Commons.” After Game Changers, Thea couldn’t help but think ‘what’s next?’ She decided her next professional challenge would be to speak at an international conference. “I got on a flight to Texas 12 months later and delivered a key note to a US audience. I was also given the role of producer last year on a film project for the company. That was a whole new experience, massively challenging! But again, the Ginger mindset came out in force and delivered.”
Archana is passionate about using technology to empower clients with information and data to protect & grow their wealth. Archana started out as a special needs coordinator in New York schools before switching to a career in investment management. While not an obvious career move, Archana has always felt a strong link between teaching and leading, with the need for meaningful collaboration and the ability to build environments which encourage trust, care and opportunities for continuous learning.
When Archana came aboard the Leaders Voices course, she had just taken on the role of Director and Chief Operating Officer at Veritas Investment Partners and was hesitant about the programme. “If I’m really honest, I think it was just the the fear of taking on quite a big job, and thinking that I don’t know if I’m going to have additional time to focus on me. But Sarah was really clear: If you don’t focus on you, you can’t do the big job. So you better focus on you. And I think she’s absolutely 100% right about that.”
Archana had never felt like she really fit in. As an Indian growing up in Switzerland, she felt ‘invisible’, largely ignored by her peers. Instead of making friends, Archana focused on academia, in order to chase an ideal of being ‘good enough’. Her childhood experiences stuck with her and internal fears of rejection meant that, into adulthood, she kept her personal and professional life extremely guarded from one another. Sharing her personal story in front a professional audience at Game Changers was ‘a real trigger’. “Even in crafting the speech I was thinking about ‘what if they don’t like me? What if they can’t come a loser?’ The voice in my head was really, really loud. So the act of sharing was really scary.”
In her emotive speech, Archana shared her experience of going through the programme and coming to a realisation that in order to deliver the best talk she could, she had to ‘reach in, to release control and to feel the emotions’. That meant opening up for the first time to an audience of peers. But she was well prepared. Her heartfelt speech was the result of months of work and support.
“We got a lot of intense coaching from a whole group of the Ginger team on all manner of things, from presence to attitude, to messaging, to storytelling, and it was just the most incredible experience of my, learning life. I think it’s brought me so many things, and allowed me to really fine tune so much about myself, and also how I interact in the world.”
Since leaving the programme, Archana has found an unexpected outcome that has changed her outlook on life. She has maintained a strong friendship with the rest of the women from her cohort.
“Human connection is so fundamental to who I am as a person, and when you find your people, it is so awe inspiring. You feel at ease. I just breathe a little bit easier knowing that these six people are on my side. We actually have a WhatsApp group called ‘Always the shoulder’, because it’s a
space where all of us feel like we can say, truly whatever. And the other people will have no §judgement, only support.”
Debra is one of the UK’s top tech business leaders, co-founder and chair of The Kindness Movement, and founder of the CharityForum. A dyslexic Entrepreneur, futurologist, public speaker and policy influencer, Debra is on a mission to harness technology to make a meaningful impact on society. In her story, she paints a context of today’s world where digital is being used by ‘short-termists’ to ‘win at any cost’, and the bleak future that could present itself if they are allowed to continue to do so. She presents another way – kindness. Debra shares the harrowing moment that she was physically abused by her mother as a child and the kindness of a stranger, that gave her hope.
Sam McAlister is a BAFTA-nominated interviews producer renowned for her adept negotiation skills, having engaged with an array of prominent figures ranging from Buckingham Palace to The White House, Tesla to Facebook. She is the woman behind the BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew, having fiercely negotiated his appearance. In the interview, Prince Andrew was challenged on accusations of sexual assault and battery, a significant coup in the context of a famously guarded Royal Family. After working with Ginger, Sam went on to appear on the Lorraine show, to discuss her book, Scoops, which reveals the story behind this and other well known interviews.
Sheikha lived through war in Kuwait and is on a mission to bring peace to the Arab world through
different forms of psychology. Through the “Intisar Foundation” a UK based charity she founded
that uses the creative therapeutic approach of drama therapy she aims to heal, support and
empower 1 million Arab women affected by war in the next 20 years.
In her emotive and insightful speech, she shared the impact of violence on her as a mother and
as a human, and the work she needed to do to change herself before she could try to change
others.
Bailey is a mission to effect global social justice change. As a social entrepreneur, systems thinker and visionary leader, she is bringing coaching into prisons to reduce violence and reoffending.
In her talk, she paints a picture of a system that is deeply failing not only its patrons, but society as a whole, by breaking up families and releasing people back into the community without any rehabilitation. And she presents another way…
