© Kallums Bathrooms All Rights Reserved 2024
This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating some of the women behind the scenes at Kallums Bathrooms by shining a light on them. They help make our family-run company what it is – a talented, supportive, and inspirational workplace.
It’s been more than 100 years since the first publicly recognised day of this kind was observed across Europe. That’s already over a century ago, and the global movement has seen much progress and rise in participation.
From our leading bathroom designers to marketing gurus, we caught up with a selection of our team to talk IWD, what inspires them and what has been their biggest career challenges to date.
Alex first walked through our bathroom showroom doors in answer to the advert looking for someone to take on our luxury design projects and was an instant hit with the team.
With her fantastic eye for design and implacable enthusiasm for every project she is part of, Alex is always bringing a smile to the faces of the Kallums team and her many happy clients.
She is a testament to what women can achieve in the bathroom design world, and a big inspiration to us all!
It’s a very personal brand with a good reputation and a lot of opportunities to offer. I’d been doing what I was doing for some time and I like a challenge, so it probably wasn’t stretching enough for me. Kallums Bathrooms was going to give me the opportunity to spread my wings and give me more freedom with my clients and the way I work, so I decided to make the change.
Balancing business and family life.
One of many inspirational women for me is Katherine Johnson. She was an extremely smart, intelligent, and humble woman.
She proved that it is possible to achieve your goals when you work hard and dream big… even during the challenging times she faced in her century.
Introducing our Head of Marketing, Ellie. Ellie started her marketing journey over 8 years ago in the bathroom world, and became part of the Kallum’s family after joining in 2021.
She is extremely organised and strong minded, with a creative flair for writing. She’s a fountain of ideas: a lot of what you see online from Kallums Bathrooms comes from her, plus a lot of what you don’t see.
I really enjoy the variety; it makes it a very challenging role! As a marketer you must cover a lot of bases. You need to build solid relationships with lots of different people, and it’s also really technical at times. I think the fact that it’s so wide-ranging means it is really stimulating, every day looks different.
It can be quite a pressured environment too, especially with a lot of different projects happening at the same time, so there’s a real sense of achievement when the leads come in. I’m very lucky to work for such a supportive company! As even when I’m feeling the pressure, I know I always have the support of our managing director and fellow colleagues.
Like many people, I was made redundant from my previous role during the peak of the covid 19 pandemic. Dealing with unemployment during such stressful and uncertain times was incredibly challenging.
I was incredibly luckily to find Kallums as quickly as I did! However, joining a new company during lockdown brought its own challenges! As well as working on a new ecommerce site, managing the main website and all marketing activities at the same time.
There are many things! Mostly, if there’s something you’re interested in or passionate about, go for it. When you grab the opportunities, that’s when the confidence comes. I always like to throw myself into every project I am a part of – that is how I have been able to grow my skills so quickly at Kallums. I’m also a big believer in that everything happens for a reason! Difficult times results in important lessons learned, which can you help flourish moving forward.
It might sound clichéd, but I’d have to say my Nannie. She is one of the most inspiring women I’ve ever met. Life has thrown many challenges at her, but she has overcome them all. Now, she is a lady of leisure and one seriously independent woman!
Enthusiastic, determined, and highly motivated Karolina has been in the bathroom design business for over 8 very successful years. Working on many high quality and highly rated projects, her work is award-nominated, and she has featured in publications including the Ideal Home magazine.
Karolina has joined Kallums with plenty of goals and ambition for both herself and the company as a whole and we can’t wait to see the bathrooms she creates with her distinctive sense of style.
I have never had anyone to mentor me. Everything I’ve achieved so far is by trusting my own gut and capabilities. I have worked very hard to get to where I am today, and I am very proud of that.
I first moved to London when I was 19 years old. I did not speak English and was without a network of friends or family to support me. It took a lot of hard work and perseverance to succeed in my career like I have. I would love to use my experience and lessons I have learnt to help other women in the future.
The only woman in my life that inspires me is my mum. I have never come across anyone stronger, more engaging, or more understanding. She has always supported my decisions and taken the time to both listen and advise me when required.
Her greatest piece of advice that I follow every day is never to judge and use any mistake you make as a lesson in life.
Always researching and learning, you’ll habitually find Libby at her laptop with half a dozen browser windows open at a time. With her eye on google rankings and ensuring the Kallum’s website looks both smart and functions well, Libby is the first stop for any tech question.
After joining the team for only two days a week initially, we soon convinced her to spend more time with us!
I think it’s really important to recognise how much has been achieved over the past century in terms of women’s rights and equality. This IWD the theme is #BreakTheBias. For me this means that we are all responsible for our own actions and thoughts and can all help to break the bias that is present everyday in our communities, schools and workplaces.
IWD is a chance to reflect and celebrate women’s accomplishments and increasing presence, while also appreciating there is still much inequality and we must continue to call attention to this.
I’ve been inspired by many women – but I’d like to mention Kate Bush. Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite songs and it was the UK’s first No.1 single written by a woman. It also became number 1 when Bush was only 19! It shows as women we must take charge of our own careers and decisions – Bush had to fight hard in a male dominated industry for Wuthering Heights to be the lead single.
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