Women
Onwards & Upwards
The influence of Camden School for Girls, whose motto was Onwards and Upwards, followed by her history degree at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she was JCR President, made Dame Julia determined to encourage other women to develop their careers and achieve a work-life balance.
Julia's contribution over four decades has included developing the first all-female leadership course at the The Industrial Society, which led to the founding of the Pepperell Department in 1978. She was the the founder of Cosmopolitan's 'Change your Life on Saturday' courses, which influenced hundreds of women in the eighties and was the architect of Opportunity 2000 with Baroness Howe in 1991.
She was a board member of the Opportunity Now campaign from 1991-2014, she has therefore been campaigning to increase women's success at work for nearly a quarter of a century, and remains relentlessly optimistic. An interview with her for the Dumbo Feather magazine in Australia, when she was working in support for the Prince's Charities - Australia, captures her optimism as well as her disregard for broken lampshades. She continues to support the gender campaign of Business In The Community. She chaired the Newnham College Campaign Board, that raised £15 million for Newnham by May 2015.