In her role as the head of a successful international company, Corrotherm CEO Jan Ward CBE is looking forward to several speaking engagements in the coming weeks. One which is especially close to her heart, though, is a talk she is giving next month to young people at Hereford Cathedral School.
The school is one of the oldest in the country, tracing its roots back to the 12th Century. However, while its beautiful surroundings might look like something out of Harry Potter, it's a school with its feet firmly in the modern world - and its eyes on international horizons far beyond its own doors.
An independent school for boys and girls aged three to 18, it prides itself on offering students a broad range of opportunities to develop every aspect of their potential. It enjoys an international reputation, attracting many students from outside the UK with its combination of academic excellence, wide range of extra-curricular activities, and emphasis on co-operation and community.
To support its broad curriculum, it regularly welcomes guest speakers to address the students on a wide range of topics - and it's as part of this speaker programme that Jan will make her way to the ancient Borders city next month.
Jan explains: "Through a connection with one of the school's governors, I already knew a little about the school, and something that really struck me was the school's passion to help its young people find their place in the world. I see speaking at the school as a great opportunity to give the students an insight into my two passions: the worlds of international business and engineering. Who knows where it might lead some of them!"
At Corrotherm we always have one eye on the future, and regard nurturing emerging talent as a priority. If you're a regular visitor to our blog, for example, you'll have met our sales assistant Will Best, who joined us two years ago on an apprenticeship. With a looming engineering skills gap - did you know, the UK will need an extra million engineers by 2020, according to recent research from the Royal Academy of Engineering? - inspiring the engineers and entrepreneurs of tomorrow is of vital importance, so we're happy to do anything that we can.
And Jan's story is an inspirational one, by anyone's standards. Having discovered her love for engineering, she built up successful export divisions for several companies during the 1980s before deciding to do it for herself. She founded Corrotherm in 1992 and started supplying high grade metals to the oil, gas and desalination markets - and the rest, as they say, is history.
To be so successful as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated industry would be remarkable today - but consider what it took to start her career in the very different world of the 1980s. In addition, Jan established the excellent and lasting relationships with customers in the Middle East that we still enjoy today at Corrotherm - a region which received wisdom might have regarded as a no-go for a female executive.
However, as Jan told 'The Business' magazine in an interview last year: "I don't listen to people who say 'it's not possible'." And it's this lesson which she's hoping to share with the young people at the Hereford Cathedral School on 8th October.
To find out more about Hereford Cathedral School, visit www.herefordcs.com. If you would like to talk to a member of the Corrotherm team, you can contact us here, or call our head office on: +44 (0)23 8074 8100.
