SENTINEL Housing Association teamed up with education charity Basingstoke Consortium to help ignite ambition for businesswomen of the future.

Year 9 and 10 pupils from Bishop Challoner Catholic Secondary School, Brighton Hill Community School, and The Costello School attended the Ignite Ambition event, which aimed to raise aspirations, build confidence and highlight the careers options open to girls.

It featured talks and a speed networking session with women in senior roles at successful local companies including Liz Jackson, the founder of Great Guns Marketing.

Genevieve Touzin, from Celador Radio, and Carel Rose and Serena Mujtaba, from AXA Wealth, also attended along with Beth Flintoff, from The Water-mill Theatre, in Newbury, Leanne Giles, from Martin Brower, Sentinel’s assistant director of Neighbourhoods and Customer Relations, Alex Nagle, and customer relations manager Lianne Burton.

Julie Grove, Sentinel’s Support Towards Employment Programme (STEP) employability and engagement co-ordinator, helped to arrange the event in partnership with Basingstoke Consortium.

Julie said: “Even though women have made great strides in business over the years, gender inequality is prevalent in the UK workplace.

“In a recent Global Gender Gap Report, the UK came in at number 26 and FTSE boardrooms consist of just 23 per cent of women.

“We’re really keen to encourage girls to maximise their career opportunities and achieve their full potential in the workplace.”

Carol Johnston, Basingstoke Consortium project manager, said: “The event was a great success and really did ‘ignite ambition’.

“The opportunity for the students to engage with so many female role models from a range of sectors was invaluable, and educational for them on so many levels.”

Feedback from the pupils who attended the event was really positive. Vicky Reszczynska, from Brighton Hill Community School, said: “It made me think about the future as it made me inspired. It opened my eyes about taking different opportunities.”

Georgie McEwan, from The Costello School, said: “Overall, it made me feel really passionate about business and gave me loads of ideas.”

Megan Pender, from Bishop Challoner Catholic Secondary School, said: “I thought the event was very eye-opening and it helped me to understand that to succeed you have to believe.”

Sentinel’s Support Towards Employment Programme runs every Thursday at the housing association’s offices in Kingsclere Road, Basingstoke.

To find out more visit sentinelha.org/step or call Julie Grove on 0800 195 5515, from a landline, or 0300 666 5515, from a mobile.