A few days ago the WOMENinSTEM@IC committee heard the sad news that Lady Barbara Judge, CBE, passed away after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
As a group, we had the honour of hosting a lunch reception with Lady Barbara last year, where we got the opportunity to learn about her experiences as a female leader in business and shared candid discussions on what it means to be a woman in the corporate workplace in the 21st century. Her career trajectory is as inspiring as it is impressive, and is a testament to her strength and determination.
Lady Barbara was welcoming, poised, eloquent, an excellent storyteller and a master at capturing the room. Despite her highly accomplished status, she treated all attendees of our event as equal and spent time getting to know every one of us and celebrating our individual achievements. We are incredibly honoured and grateful that Lady Barbara took the time out of her busy schedule to meet with us.
It saddens us greatly that during this time of mourning for her family and close ones, many media outlets are using clickbait titles and calling her a “controversial figure”. This is sadly a prime example of the different treatment that women leaders receive compared to their male counterparts and echoes many of the stories that Lady Barbara shared with us.
The WOMENinSTEM@IC community would like to focus on her achievements and the good that she brought to the world, so we would like to end this post with the following statement:
Lady Barbara was a prime example of a female trailblazer and entrepreneur, and lived more and worked harder in a lifetime than most. We believe she was exemplary at empowering women, and everyone who was lucky enough to attend our joint event left with advice and inspiration to last a lifetime. We hope that her memory will live on through our achievements as future women leaders.