BLOG: IWD 2025 - Oona
Oona Muirhead is the former Chief Executive of a business support Agency, with over 40 years’ experience of Whitehall, local and regional government.
As UK Chair of Groundwork’s Federation Board, Oona delights in being part of growing Groundwork’s mission to support green jobs, green homes and green communities.
Oona said: “What we’re trying to do at the federation level is to see how we can add value by operating as a federation rather than as individual trusts in different parts of the country. That makes it fascinating because it means we’re thinking about common strategies. We’re working really collaboratively and jointly to help each other across the federation to be more than the sum of our parts.
“If we can all as teams in organisations understand that what really makes us stronger and better is the diversity of thought and collaborating, using and drawing on that diversity of thought and emotional intelligence and experience, then your gender becomes less important.
“I’d like to think I’ve contributed a lot to getting people to work collaboratively together. Once after a meeting I was chairing, a colleague turned to me and said, ‘that is the best meeting I’ve ever been to.’ He thought it had gone well because it was collaborative, and everyone was in agreement about joint working. I thought, ‘well, why wouldn’t we?’
“International Women’s Day focuses attention on the fact that there’s lots more to be done to improve the prospects for women around the world. In fact, I think things are more difficult and complex now than they were 30-40 years ago, with social media and the levels of abuse women face. We need to do more thinking about and tackling these cultural issues right from primary school.
“We are all human beings, and we should all be treated the same and have the same opportunities to do whatever we want to, depending on our desires and our talents.
My advice to younger women would be not to hesitate to ask for help and advice. It can take guts to ask for help and to raise your voice to ask the question everyone wants to know the answer to.
“Don’t think that you can’t get help from men as well as women. This is not just about women’s networks, which are a great thing to do for support, but men have to be included. Having upward mentoring as well as downward mentoring is a really good thing to do so more senior people don’t get stuck in their ways.
“If I had a sit-down meal with any three women, dead or alive, I’d choose Boudicca, Queen Elizabeth the 1st and Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. I’d like to talk about their perspective as a woman through the centuries and ask them what it was that made them into warriors in their different ages.”