 Up next is the keynote speech. Please welcome Ms. Lisa Welch, Managing Director, M-E-T-R-A, Hillplus-Nolton Strategies. She will be sharing her views on the field of PR and communication. Welcome, Lisa. Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me okay? Yes, you're perfectly audible. The stage is all yours. Thank you so very much. Fantastic. Thank you so much. And it was so powerful to come into a room with everyone with a round of applause. I love that we've started off with a celebration of everybody in the room, and I think that really echoes very well to what I'm going to talk about today. First of all, thank you for having me here today. It's a pleasure to be amongst so many talented and inspirational individuals in the room and online this afternoon. I really enjoyed listening and following the Women's Achievers Summit and Awards, and I'm really honoured to be speaking here today at the third edition. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Lisa Welch, and I'm Managing Director at Hill and Nolton Strategies, one of the world's leading communications companies. I'm based in Dubai, in the UAE, and I've worked in communications for a little over 20 years now in London, Europe, and across the Middle East, India, and also Africa. What I really love about working in this part of the world is the people I meet. During the many conversations I have with people when either I've travelled and I'm lucky enough to have spent some time in India in the past few years, whether in meetings or workshops, and also those four-way conversations that we have, I always feel really inspired by communications people in the PR industry of how we really strive to be better, how we strive to help people and clients in their growth, and as individuals how we bring value to people and also the brands that we work with as well. As part of my role as a communications leader, I spend a lot of time coaching my team, my clients, and I'm also an executive coach, and I've coached many leaders on a multitude of topics. As a coach, I aim really to help people reach their full potential in a creative and thought provoking way, and talk about a range of topics, things that come up for things like how can I get my next promotion, how do I manage a support relationship in the workplace, or how do I manage a really stressful client project. And I guess what has surprised me over the years is the difference in the questions that I get from men and women, and I love that we start with this talk, as you say, with a big round of applause and celebration of ourselves, because I want to talk about how we can inspire others, but also how we can inspire ourselves as well. So over the years, with the women that I've worked with in the communications industry and also through my coaching, things that we often talk about with my female clients are how do I get past my impulse and growth, how do I bring myself to the table as a female leader, and how can I manage myself doubts. And what's interesting is that these aren't questions that I'm exploring with men. What I really love about today's session is that we're having this conversation already. This is a platform and it's providing an opportunity for us to really have a dialogue about these different things. It's clear that we believe in the power of celebrating our incredible collective of trailblazing women, and our friends, our clients, our peers, and our colleagues, and we're talking about how can we help ourselves and other women and other individuals overcome things like fear, like self-doubt and posture syndrome, so we can really live the life that we desire. So there's six key themes that I'd like to talk through today that has come up for me in the years that I've been working as a PR leader and also coaching my team. Number one is one that we've talked about a little bit today is that how can we be a cheerleader, not only to ourselves, but also to our colleague. As a coach, whether I'm speaking to my PR team or my PR clients, or even my coaching clients, I really view my role as how do I bridge between where people are now and where they want to go. And what I love the most about working with people and guiding women specifically in our industry is seeing other women really win. A few weeks back we were running a training course at Hill or Nothing, and there were four of the trainers that were sat around the table, literally on, you know, day three of our last day of our three-day training event. And one of my colleagues said, why don't we do a look-up? Why don't we go around the table and we tell each other one thing that we're really grateful for, or the other one, and also give one gift of advice. And this was something that we were going to close our training session with, and we thought, why don't we try this ourselves? And when it came to my turn, the things that I realized about the three wonderful women and hugely inspiring women that were sat around the table was that I really felt that they had my back. I felt like when I achieved something that I was proud of, no matter how big or how small, that they congratulated me, that they celebrated with me. They took time and effort to the acknowledgement moment in my life where my hard work and my effort had paid off. And I think most of all, after just a few minutes of sharing this moment, we all went about our day feeling a little bit happier, a little bit more focused, and certainly more grateful. And I think when we apply this to our day-to-day work, nothing makes them happier than seeing someone that maybe felt like they weren't good enough. We really start to believe in themselves, to believe in that self-worth and their capabilities, and to start to make those baby steps towards their goals as well. And I think what we can do as women and what we can do as individuals is to help wake women up to the power that is within them, so that they can start making their own rules and live a life on their toes. I think perfectionism is also something that we've been talking about today, and it's something that really comes a lot up a lot with the team that I speak to. Obviously, a lot of people always think that confidence really is perfection. And if I'm confident, then I should never doubt myself or never feel afraid, but we know that that's not true. And I think we're really starting to realize that confidence isn't about having the absence of fear. It's about completely being able to get rid of fear or those negative thoughts. But I think confidence is about being brave enough to challenge those limiting beliefs that we have in ourselves. It's about on ourselves anyway, and it's to really then follow through with the action. I think another crucial part of confidence is learning how to not internalize failure or rejection. And I think in the communications industry, whether it's pictures or a media pitch, we can sometimes face this. And I think it's important for us to learn as leaders that failure is an incident. It's a one-off thing. It's something that happens to you. It's not who we are. And it's about how can we take that experience of failure and never be a failure because we aren't. How can we learn to take those setbacks as an opportunity to grow rather than give us a reason to give up? So the things that we ask ourselves and the things that I really encourage my team to think about is how can we have more knowledge about ourselves so that we can build our confidence? How can we manage those negative thoughts? We talk quite a lot about critical voice that we have that tells them we should maybe do more, we should be better. And how can we really track our accomplishments and, with our squad, really celebrate them? With our peers and our colleagues, our clients, with our in-house teams, how can we celebrate those accomplishments that we have? Thirdly, what comes up quite a lot is brand new. And we talk quite a lot about brand new at who we're not in. And it's essentially what people say about you when you're not in a room. And we encourage people to think about what are the three things that you want to be known for? And I think in the previous session someone mentioned storytelling is now story living. And I think that just brings to life musically. You know, when you tell something you say it's so much, you believe it. And once you start to believe it, others in the room start to believe it as well. And how can we share that brand, that brand to you? How can we share that with our colleagues, with our clients, with our stakeholders, but also with ourselves? I think influence is something that is really interesting when it comes to women in leadership. That transition from being the leader is challenging for everyone. But I think there's unique obstacles that we can face as well. So many women struggle with finding that authentic leader. What is that authentic style to them? What works most to them? How can they bring their true selves across in all of life scenarios? And we've seen and heard from some absolutely phenomenal female leaders today and just leaders throughout the session of today. And it's important to have people to look up to and to learn from. And as women, we are natural leaders and we often can develop most innovative strategies. And I think, you know, my belief is an investment in professional women and executive women is really an investment in a successful business. And there's, I guess, six things that I've learned over the years in talking to clients and talking to my teams and what those ingredients are to be a successful leader in communications. One is mentorship. Who are the people that we are learning from? Who are the people that guide us on our journey that are asking us those powerful questions? Two is resilience. How are we staying strong during these really challenging times? Three is being present. How are we showing up each and every day? How are we bringing ourselves to the table? Number four is how are we having a point of view? Do we have a point of view on the things that really matter to us? That really matter to our clients? That really matter to our team? And that really matters to our organization? Do we have that strong powerful point of view? And if so, what if, can we share it? Are we sharing? Number five is being bold and taking risks. Asking ourselves, am I bold? Am I really challenging myself in my ideas, in the discussions that I'm having, and in the decisions that I'm making? And finally, difficult conversations. Are we saying truth to ourselves? And are we saying the things that need to be said in really tough times? A recent report by McKinsey stated that women are doing their part. What are the more degrees than them? What are asking for motions and negotiating salaries more than what they've ever done at the time before? And that we're staying in the white horse at the same rate as them. But it's now time to have more influence, more influence in the decisions, more influence and a point of view, and really being part of that discussion. What I find quite interesting in the conversations that I have with coaching clients specifically, is imposter syndrome. And it comes up quite a lot in our PR industry. Research shows that men, that women sorry, more than men, will doubt and downplay their abilities and their qualifications. And the result of this, that women can sometimes hesitate to take on those high profile projects, or wait until they have more credentials and more experience and more training before seeking out the motion or how you're on. And it's a form of self-sabotage that sometimes we think is just being logical. But sometimes we cannot realise the damage that it can do. And things that I challenge myself to think about, and my team to think about is, how do we hold ourselves more? Who owns the power and when do we give that power up? And how do we downplay our capabilities? And it's acknowledging those moments, either in ourselves or in our colleagues and our peers, and making sure that we become aware of those. And finally, it's diminishing ourselves. I think it's a really interesting observation. At times we can see women and ourselves say things like, I'm not sure, but what if we did it this way? Or apologising that it's not needed? You know, how many times we've been in meetings and we've heard someone say, I'm sorry, but I don't think this is right. How about we do this? Or the self-deprecation here, but you know me, numbers aren't really my strong points. So I think it's really seeing how often we do this and how much we notice this, and our women do this as well. So to close, I would ask that we encourage ourselves for questions that I think are really important as leaders in the PR industry. Number one, what is it to be my authentic self? And number two, how do I bring my authentic self to the table? How can I show the value that I bring? And finally, my favourite question is how can I truly own my brilliant? And with that, I thank you very much for listening today. I hope you found that interesting and insightful. I'm happy to take any questions, if there are any, otherwise, thank you and have a great day.