Tales from the boardroom with Diane Chadwick-Jones

On 16 November, Diane Chadwick-Jones, who attended St Mary's from 1980 to 1984, returned to the school virtually to discuss her varied career and offer advice to roughly forty current pupils. Having retired from her role of Human Performance Director at BP after a successful 30-year career, Diane has since concentrated on delivering cultural change and embedding the values of the company to improve organisational effectiveness and safety performance.

Diane told us stories from her career and advised our students about how to speak up about issues, build alliances and leverage mentors. She joined the BP from Imperial College, London, and held leadership roles in a number of sectors including refining, exploration and chemicals, working in Belgium, Brazil and Egypt. She is also an advocate and mentor, focusing on increasing the representation of ethnic minority STEM talent in industry, and was recognised for her contribution by being included in the 2019 EMpower UK Top 15 Ethnic Minority Advocate list. Diane's event shared her career highlights and lowlights, and explained how St Mary's set her on her way, giving her the determination to be who she wanted to be. 

There were about 40 students on the Zoom call. We would like to thank Diane again for this interesting and informative evening.

To find out more about St Mary's alumnae, follow this link.