UK Avison Young Women's Network: Meet An Ally - Gordon Hewling
Following upon last week’s International Women’s Week the Avison Young UK Women’s Network has strengthened its UK presence towards meeting their objectives.
The women’s network within Avison Young UK believes in creating a supportive environment where women can thrive both personally and professionally; our ambition is to shine a light on the great work being done, be a voice for equality and inclusion within the business and industry and increase our client connectivity.
They recognize the importance of allies in achieving our goals and invite our male colleagues who support the mission of creating a more inclusive workplace to join, your presence and support are invaluable as we work together to drive positive change.
They have enlisted an ally in Gordon Hewling, Principal and Managing Director, Newcastle who sets out below his strong support for the network.
Tell us about yourself. What do you do?
I am the Regional Managing Director of the Avison Young Newcastle office. In my role I represent the business in various industry forums, helping to raise the AY profile and to promote more broadly the Newcastle City Region. This includes a role with Developing Consensus, a public-private sector initiative promoting development, and working closely with Invest Newcastle to support their MIPIM and UKREiiF delegations. I also sit on the Management Board of the Building and Project Consultancy business group.
Day-to-day, I provide project management advice to developers on major schemes and am currently overseeing the redevelopment of Pilgrim Street in Newcastle, a once-in-a-generation project which will transform the city centre and deliver over 13,000 new permanent jobs into the heart of the city.
Why is being an alley to the UK Women's Network important to you?
As a Regional MD, I am responsible for growing the business. As well as looking for opportunities to promote the business, secure mandates etc, of more importance is ensuring the career development of colleagues, mentoring their growth and looking at succession planning. This is particularly important – and arguably more challenging – in our smaller offices, where team numbers are limited by the size of the market.
We work extra hard to ensure everybody has the opportunity to develop. Clients, peers and our public sector partners want Avison Young to look like they look, and this helps reinforce our own drive to empower women within our business. In my role as a project manager, I lead and work in large, increasingly diverse teams. Whether client, planner, architect or engineer, the number of women in key roles within our industry is increasing. It doesn’t match the legal profession – which must be our aspiration – but we do need to ensure at our female colleagues at AY have a seat at that table.
To do this, we need to be sure female colleagues have a career path and a voice both within and outside Avison Young. Internally, we are ensuring that women have a place on our Newcastle Exec and that they are given every opportunity to represent the office in AY-wide initiatives, whether this is the Women’s Network or other more prosaic but necessary functions. Holly Busson leads our business development initiative, is also our Women’s Network rep and sits on the AY Gender Pay Gap Group.
Externally, we need to make sure our voice is as diverse as possible, and female colleagues are encouraged to represent the business at industry events and in the various forums we participate in. Helen Ewles, recently promoted to Associate Director within REFIM, leads on our portfolio of Reuben Brothers portfolio and she is a good example of promoting our business and services in the mainstream and online media.
Looking ahead, we need to increase the number of women in the Newcastle office, encourage their development and ensure their voice is heard more and more. The ultimate statement will be a female Regional MD – this has to be our goal. One specific target area is the strategic advice we provide in the public sector. At present, we are providing a great deal of advice at a senior level, which is creating a fantastic pipeline of consultancy and delivery opportunities. We have made a commitment to build a more diverse team to support this strategic advice and, ultimately, to be providing that advice in future years.
As an office, we have also agreed to engage more with local schools and colleges to explore different pathways for people to enter the business (and the wider industry). This initiative is being led by Holly and we hope will show to prospective recruits what it is possible to achieve.
