Female leaders have a responsibility to “fly the flag” for fellow women coming up through the ranks said Penny Petroleum’s chief executive Vicky Hennessy on an industry panel at the NEC’s National Convenience Show this week.
Hennessy said that having navigated her career alongside bringing up her son she was well aware of the challenges in instilling a healthy work-life balance.
Central to this is women – and other people with caring responsibilities – having access to flexible working hours, she believes.
“When you look at the hours that you have to do in convenience, that is a real put off for women,” she said. “But as leaders, female leaders, we can do something about that, and have that at front of mind when recruiting and pushing our female colleagues forward.”
She said that reducing her hours while her son was young, meant that she was six years behind her male contemporaries when she returned to full-time work. And she hopes to use her position at the Top 50 Indie to help stop this cycle.
“When I had my child, I went to work to part-time. I felt like all opportunity had been lost in my career,” she said.
“I feel that I am in such a great, privileged position. I can be an advocate for my female colleagues, I have an influence over their careers, and I am absolutely all over that within our business,” she said. “We have some great females coming up through the ranks and I am sure that they will do well and deliver.”
She pointed to ACS data which shows that while 70% of convenience employees are women, two-thirds of independent convenience stores are owned or managed by men. “Females are under-represented in both leadership and decision making,” she maintained.
Other representatives on The Female Leaders Shaping Convenience panel agreed that more needed to be done to encourage greater parity between the sexes. Deborah Robinson, chief executive of Our Co-op, said that at events she would always make an effort to introduce herself to every woman in the room.
Trudy Hills trading director of Spar UK said that women should not feel conflicted if they need to take time out from family time to check in on work. “It’s all about what works for you personally,” she said, explaining that her family gives her “permission hours” in which she can check that “nothing has fallen over” while she is off duty, so that she can carry on with work breaks stress-free.
And Glasgow-based Londis store owner Natalie Lightfoot urged women to build support networks and to play into their strengths of empathy, building trust in relationships and connecting with customers. “We just have to show up a little bit harder,” she said.
For Hennessy that has meant pushing herself out of her comfort zone with public speaking. “It is not on my list of favourite things,” she said. “But for me it is really essential and important that when you are in a position of seniority or leadership that you are an ambassador for us females, and you get out there and fly the flag.”
In fact, two weeks ago she was invited to speak at Boston’s Harvard University, giving students an insight into so-called ‘bootstrap businesses’ which have grown organically like Penny Petroleum with self-funding rather than by equity backing.
“What a privilege; little old me from Wigan, being at Harvard University,” she recalled. “A super proud moment, and I was super proud to talk about Penny Petroleum and how far we have come as well.”
“People are watching what I am doing. They are watching how I’ve gone up the ranks. I have gone from being a till operator, I’ve done every single job that there is, and now I am CEO. I want people to watch that and get some inspiration from it, and to think ‘I could do that and I’m going to give it a go’.”
