International Women’s Day at TDi

March 8, 2017

What does International Women’s Day mean to you? For us in business, it’s another opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women throughout the world. At TDi, we work in an office where women are the majority. Today, globally, many women are striking to show how without women, the world stops. If we did that, TDi would stop.

At TDi, we’re passionate about empowering women to run enterprises that do good and make money. Over 70% of the businesses we work with in Australia are women-led, which we think is pretty awesome. Especially considering the start-up space still has a gender equity problem, in 2016 only 23.5% of Australian start-up founders were women.

So tonight, we’re all marching in the International Women’s Day March on Melbourne to show that we believe in the fundamental rights of women and that equality must always be strived for inside and outside of the office.

Melissa Browne, a ferocious entrepreneur from Sydney is incorporating this same goal into her work every day. We chatted to the business and financial advisor, who works “to help women find their voice and to help them become business and financially savvy”.

 

“I think women bring passion and heart to what we do. A lot of women start their businesses based on this”.

— Melissa Browne, Founder and Entrepreneur

So tonight, we’re all marching in the International Women’s Day March on Melbourne to show that we believe in the fundamental rights of women and that equality must always be strived for inside and outside of the office.
Melissa Browne, a ferocious entrepreneur from Sydney is incorporating this same goal into her work every day. We chatted to the business and financial advisor, who works “to help women find their voice and to help them become business and financially savvy”.

 

“I think women bring passion and heart to what we do. A lot of women start their businesses based on this”.

— Melissa Browne, Founder and Entrepreneur

 

Why do organisations need women in their teams and especially on their executive teams?

“I don’t think we just need women, we need a big slice of society. We can start with women and then we’ll go from there. The fact that there’s a lack of diversity is really obvious, then you have things like unconscious bias and not having different opinions coming into the mix”.

Throughout your career, has being a woman ever proved difficult professionally?

“Absolutely, everything from people thinking my business was my dad’s business, through to how I behaved. When I started out I would try very hard to fit into what the men were doing, which was really dumb. When I was willing to embrace my femininity and to be confident about being a female in my business, my business just exploded”.

 

If you want to support International Women’s Day, head to the International Women’s Development Agency and find out what you can do!

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