The Lifetime Achievement Award 2009 Finalists

Estelle Clark, our 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award winner
Group Business Assurance Director, Lloyd’s Register

As you might imagine I'm thrilled to be a finalist for the Coutts Lifetime Achievement Award. But, even more than this, I am excited by the opportunities that being a contender has opened up.

In putting my submission together I've been reminded of the difficulties I faced, as a woman, in progressing my career. And I know that similar barriers still face many women today. So, I'm certain that every woman involved with these awards will redouble their efforts to support women generally, and particularly women in the city.

You have my personal commitment to this.

Lloyd's Register is an organisation that works to enhance safety and to approve assets and systems at sea, on land and in the air – checking that assets and systems work so that people and communities around the world can get on with everyday life.  Estelle is Group Director of Business Assurance leading the deployment of a new Business Assurance system which was recently the winner of IQPC’s best start-up programme 2009.  

Previous roles were as Quality Director at the Financial Ombudsman Service; Vice President QEHS for the global engineering giant Alstom Power, based out of Zurich; Director of Quality and Business Effectiveness at Fujitsu-ICL after a career spanning technical and line roles in consultancy, project management and sales management.

In 2006-2007 Estelle was both UK and European Quality Leader of the Year. She is a Chartered Quality Professional, a Fellow of the Chartered Quality Institute, Chairman of their Stakeholder Board and a Member of their Board of Trustees. She is also Chair of the British Quality Foundation’s Customer Experience Group.

Estelle has previously been a member of the General Technical Committee of Lloyds Register Quality Assurance, judge of the IQPC Six Sigma Innovation Award, chairman of the British Deming Association, an assessor for the European Quality Award and chair of the founder members group of the British Quality Foundation.  

She is also a Fellow of the RSA.

Estelle is a passionate sailor and in any spare time can be found on Vittoria, an elderly but beautiful, ketch.

Maggie Craig
Acting Director General, Director of Life and Savings, Director of Consumer Affairs, Director of Scottish Affairs and a 2009 Award Finalist

I am delighted to be a finalist in the Coutts Lifetime Achievement award.  Women in the City is a valuable organisation that continues to go from strength to strength.   Promoting and bringing together women from different disciplines and organisations highlights how many successful women we have in this vibrant city.  But we need to continue to encourage women within our workplaces and beyond to reach more of the senior roles in the City. These awards are one way to help to achieve this by recognising outstanding performance and up and coming talent.

Maggie runs the Life and Savings team, leads the ABI’s Consumer Strategy and directs ABI activity in Scotland.  A graduate of Glasgow University, Maggie started work as a graduate trainee pensions administrator, and later worked as an IFA and in marketing and press roles in the industry.  Prior to joining the ABI, Maggie had two periods at Standard Life, as Head of Pension Policy from 1989-2000 and as Head of Public Affairs and Communication Strategy from 2003-2007.  In between, she was Pensions Development Manager for Scottish Equitable. All of these roles involved a wide variety of lobbying, policy and media work.

In her present role she heads up a department of 14 staff, half of whom are women, including two of three Assistant Directors.  She is a strong believer in encouraging women to strive to achieve more.  Spending most of the last 25 years as a working mother, and now grandmother, Maggie knows only too well the pressures of work/life balance that women in the workplace face, often meaning that many women can be held back.   During her time at the ABI she has had considerable success in improving productivity, morale and performance of the Life and Savings department.

Maggie has spent a lot of time creating and maintaining networks of women both within the ABI and across industries – she helps them and they help her- everyone benefits.  She is a great believer in sharing knowledge.  Maggie believes that although knowledge is power, but it becomes so much more powerful when it's shared.  Women are more likely to network outside of the industry that they work in and share knowledge than men, mainly because we are good at multi-tasking and we are good at maintaining contacts when we move jobs through our careers.

Maggie has been married to her husband for 33 years; they have three daughters, one grandson, an assortment of cats, dogs, poultry and fish, plus one Shetland pony.  When she does have some free time she enjoys reading, sewing, music, red wine and playing the piano – although not necessarily in that order or all at once.

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