What's that somewhat eye-roll worthy phrase, behind every great man is a strong woman? Well, behind every great product, service or work of art, is an even greater woman. In fact, we've hunted down the best of the best, across industries sports journalism and activism to fashion, theatre and food, to talk about their journey so far.
Outstanding in their fields, these women are forging a path for those who follow…
The Sports Media Pioneer: Miriam Walker-Khan, founder of Brown Girl Sport
‘I’ve always wanted to tell stories of South Asian women in sport, because I didn’t hear them growing up,’ says Walker-Khan, who is diversity and inclusion reporter at Sky Sports. ‘It’s hard in mainstream sports media to get those stories out, but they’re incredible tales of defiance and passion.’
She grew up in a sporty family and when, in her first year at uni, she found herself injured, she swapped competing for writing about sport. ‘I was writing for an athletics website and it escalated; I went from interviewing people at the Northern Athletics Championships to Usain Bolt the next year,’ she says. The gender disparities in sports journalism were clear. During her master’s degree, she was only allowed to do sports assignments if someone else was off sick. ‘I went to a press conference for Yohan Blake and almost everyone there was a white man,’ she recalls.
She is also used to sexism. ‘People always ask if I know the [football] offside rule,’ she says. Last year, she started the online platform Brown Girl Sport, celebrating the stories of South Asian women. ‘It’s blown my mind how many people really want to support it; it’s heartwarming.’
The unstoppable activist: Sophia Luu, founder of Secrets Worth Sharing
Luu wants us to have heavy conversations with serious joy – it’s the basis of her activism. ‘I’m a trauma-informed designer and I experienced child sex abuse (CSA),’ she says. ‘The way people managed conversations about it was sometimes worse than the abuse itself.’ She found no one knew how to respond to her trauma. ‘It’s such an uncomfortable issue, we don’t know where to begin. I couldn’t find any advice that felt approachable, practical and culturally sensitive. So, I decided to build that platform myself.’ Secrets Worth Sharing aims to change the way we talk about – and fight – CSA, through online content, events and training.
Since launching, Luu has been invited to represent the UK at the first Global Conference on CSA, organised by WHO and UNICEF. ‘The way we campaign against CSA needs to account for the diversity of types of abuse and survivors. That’s why my platform features survivor voices from a range of genders, ethnicities and circumstances.’ While Luu received an initial grant to fund her podcast, she doesn’t get paid to produce any of her online content. There is an emotional toll, too. But for Luu, it’s an essential fight: ‘I will always strive for a world where people feel comfortable having conversations about child sex abuse.’ To find out more, follow @secretsworthsharing_ (www.secretsworthsharing.com)
The Fashion Revolutionary: Eshita Kabra-Davies, founder of ByRotation
Need inspiration to start that side hustle? Kabra-Davies, 33, started fashion rental company By Rotation while working full-time as an investment analyst. Born in India and raised in Singapore, she moved to London for uni. Working in finance taught her the business ropes but she wanted to create something of her own. ‘By Rotation came from a first-world problem: I wanted nice clothes for my honeymoon,’ she says. ‘I looked at the fashion- sharing landscape, but what was out there was not up to date with the modern corporate woman.’
And on honeymoon in Rajasthan she saw how devastating textile waste is. ‘As Brits, we’re purchasing 10 times what our parents did, and 90% of charity donations end up in landfill in Africa and Asia.’ Securing funding was a challenge. ‘For the first six months, I was still working at a hedge fund and using my salary to pay [staff]; it was a labour of love. As a solo female founder, I’ve raised venture capital, of which less than 0.2% goes to women of colour. I have to take my own path, there isn’t any guidebook,’ she says. ‘The finance world is very merit-based. When I was breaking into fashion, I noticed it was more about who you knew. I thought, I’m going to make my own tribe.’ With a community of more than 500,000 users, she’s done just that.
The star chef: April Lily Partridge, sous chef at The Ledbury
Ever wondered how true to life The Bear is? Well: very. For Partridge, sous chef at three Michelin-starred The Ledbury, it’s too close to home to even watch. She is the only woman in a team of four who lead the kitchen, voted Britain’s best at this year’s National Restaurant Awards. At 30, she’s had a career many chefs can only dream of: junior chef at The Ivy, staging under Michael Anthony at New York’s Gramercy Tavern; winning the prestigious Roux Scholarship. ‘That was my proudest moment,’ she says. ‘I was the only woman in the final and only one other woman has ever won it.’
As a teenager doing work experience in a kitchen, she ‘fell in love with the camaraderie before the food’. ‘My whole life I never felt like I fitted in, and when you get into a kitchen, it’s this group of misfits but together they make magical things happen.’ Partridge insists, ‘Anyone can learn to cook; all you need is the desire to work hard, to take criticism constructively and be willing to make sacrifices.’ They include 70-hour weeks and missing Christmases. ‘Being a woman in this industry is hard,’ she says. ‘You have to put in that extra 10% just to be seen.
The theatre titan: Rebecca Frecknall, award-winning director
Women make up over 65% of British theatre-goers, yet 69% of directors and 74% of writers are men. Enter award-winning director Rebecca Frecknall, best known for directing the 2021 West End revival of Cabaret. ‘It’s a very competitive industry,’ says Frecknall. ‘I didn’t have a plan B, so I had to make it work. I wrote to lots of people, went to loads of shows, applied for schemes and awards.’ Her first job was at the Young Vic, and in 2018 she made her directorial debut at the Almeida with Summer And Smoke. Since then, she’s directed two runs of Cabaret, as well as Romeo And Juliet (also at the Almeida) and
has been nominated for best director at the Olivier Awards three times (winning once for Cabaret). ‘It proves that it’s about sticking with it.’ Frecknall has definitely felt the weight of being a woman in a leadership role, noting that some men have ‘complicated feelings’ about being directed by a woman. Class is also an issue. ‘Some people feel that the theatre is not open to them. I grew up in a place where there wasn’t any theatre and I was just lucky that my parents took me. We need to protect our regional theatres for that reason – they have such potential to attract people from different backgrounds.’
The Femtech disruptor: Chantelle Bell, co-founder of Syrona Health
While memories of uni life often consist of drunken nights and missed deadlines, when Bell was a student, she was busy trying to save the world. She and fellow Cambridge grad Anya Roy were developing a device that would allow women to test at home for cervical cancer. Now, their company, Syrona Health, has secured venture capital to build their product and in 2018 Bell was named one of Forbes’ Top 50 women in tech for Europe. Femtech is one sector within tech where female founders dominate: 70% of start-ups are female founded. But they receive less than half the capital of male-owned firms. ‘It’s difficult,’ Bell,29, says. ‘We’ve often found ourselves in rooms where we’re the only ones who look like us, which can be intimidating.’
Her passion for Femtech was sparked by her own experiences. ‘There was a significant gap in the healthcare offered [at work], particularly women’s health,’ she says. Their cervical cancer test idea came pre-Covid, when people responded, ‘Who’s going to use an at-home test?’ That’s why they launched their app, Sora, which offers personalised access to health services. ‘We want to break down the barriers in healthcare access and promote a more inclusive, responsive healthcare system.’
Production credits
HAIR: BEN COOKE AT ONE REPRESENTS FOR LOCKONEGO USING MARIA NILA.
MAKE-UP: NATSUMI NARITA.
NAILS: ROBBIE TOMKINS AT LMC WORLDWIDE USING PROTEIN FORMULA.
PHOTOGRAPHER’S FIRST ASSISTANT: ROB PALMER; SECOND ASSISTANT: JONNY TOMLINSON. DIGITAL: RORY RONNIE.
PRODUCTION: ANNA DEWHURST.
STYLIST’S ASSISTANTS: JOEY YIP, FRANCESCA MARTIN. STYLE INTERN: INKA BLAUBACH