On March 8 we're celebrating 100 years of International Women's Day and I thought this
was a really significant event that Bazaar should be celebrating.
We got together with Pandora who were equally excited about celebrating some wonderful women
of influence in our community. Pandora decided to support Harpers Bazaar's women of influence.
There's so many talented women out there which have so much to offer and if they can be inspired
by seeing what other women have done, I think that is such a worthy cause to go in and support.
We felt the women who we've profiled with these women of influence were women and of course
one man working in a women's world who had touched us over the past year, so women who
we had come to know and admire for the work that they were doing but perhaps hadn't had
a natural home in our magazine before.
I think that there's been a lot of incredible Australian women that have been pioneers in
what they do, whether it's in the medical field or whether it's in academic life or
even in our Australian political system.
Vassie Bussell was one of the premier ballerinas of the Royal Ballet and she's got two young girls now
and she's retired but she was always an inspiration so for watching her when I was a student
was something that I envisaged that I would love to aspire to be.
I was fascinated by pregnancy, I actually did a ballet bar in pointe shoes the day before I gave birth to my daughter.
When I was younger because I started modelling when I was 13, my mum helped me a lot and
actually kind of mentored me the whole way and yeah, it's been a huge inspiration.
I obviously have a very close relationship with my mother and sister and I suppose being
so close to them had always made me quite intuitive as far as how they approached
Justin themselves.
I work for Westpac and we're the oldest company in Australia.
We're all about helping women run sustainable, profitable businesses and for individual women
to have really sustainable, profitable futures into their retirement.
I have created PENCOPE which is a community for high risk women like myself and the aim of PENCOPE
is to inform, inspire and support high risk women around Australia.
PONCOPE has always been part of my working career.
My background is communications, PR, issue management and media and it was a good fit I guess.
One laptop per child contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in being a part of their organisation
and asked if I was happy too.
When you are independent and you have a career and you have your own money, you have a lot of choices.
I've kind of attracted to women that have a real kind of strong sense of who they are
and a sense of conviction and are motivated and driven and have that kind of strength to them.
Women can bring a different touch, a different perspective to their working careers
and I think that there is a definite value add that we deliver to any organisation or community or family
and I think that's really important for women to be treated themselves.
To know that PENCOPE is making a real true difference is one of my proudest achievements in my life.
I think across the community it's really important for women to stand up on this day of March 8.
Walk a bridge if you can. I'll be walking the Harbour Bridge.
That's a symbolic way of us saying it's the crossing of cultures, the joining of women together
and it will make us all stronger.
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