Hear from Jeanette Selby, Senior Genomics Technician, on her success in a pioneering technical leadership programme:

"At the end of 2021 my application to the Herschel Programme for Women in Technical Leadership, run by MI TALENT, was successful. The programme ran during the first 6 months of 2022 offering the chance for me to attended on-line courses covering a wide range of topics relevant to women in the technical workplace: ‘Culture and Context’, Confidence and Empowerment’, You as a Leader’ and ‘Influencing and Negotiating’. All of these courses were packed with useful references, advice and tools to help me grow in confidence and realise my potential in my current role as well as look forward to the challenges future roles may bring.

The second arm of the programme, running along side the on-line course content, were our Actions Learning Sets (ALS). These were groups of 4 or 5 delegates, put together to use the process of action learning to talk though and solve workplace issues of the individuals in the group. This initially seemed a daunting prospect; we had never met each other and COVID meant our face-to-face introductory meeting did not happen. However, our monthly on-line sessions became a highlight of the programme. My group found much common ground and we helped each other work through immediate problems and looked at longer term goals. We will all be staying on touch and it is good to have expanded my network of technical contacts across 3 other institutions!

The programme culminated with an in-person celebration event in London and it was so good to meet the people I had been working with over the 6 month course. It was a really worthwhile programme that has taught me a lot about myself and how to help make positive changes to my workplace and practices.

Find out more about the programme