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A fond farewell for now to Nicola ...

Jan 31, 2023

Many of you will have heard from Nicola whether you realise or not. She has been the mastermind behind WHEN since she joined in May 2021. She is the first employee to join the team and had the hard task of working alongside me (with my full-time day job) to try to get to the bottom of what WHEN was all about and bring to life the vision. Nicola’s role has seen her driving activity across the whole of WHEN. However her top priority has been to ensure that we successfully delivered the pilot of our 100 Black Women Professors NOW programme. 

The cumulation of all of this hard work took place last week as we gathered in Leeds to celebrate how far we have come. It was a joyful occasion, full of love, admiration and hope, I only wish Nicola could have been there to see the fruits of all of her hard work. 

 Nicola is due to have a baby in February, the event was going to be her last big thing before settling down into a period of rest before the baby arrives. A week before the event was due to take place, she was signed off slightly early for her maternity leave. So it leaves us with an abrupt farewell but a much needed rest for Nicola. She really has been a rock, making everything happen and enabling WHEN to be the growing team that we are today. She took a leap of faith, worked incredibly hard and is appreciated so much. But now it’s time for her to take time to be with her little boy Finn and husband Stuart as they welcome their newest little one to the family. If I were saying this at the event, we’d all be getting up to give her an enormous standing ovation, but she’ll have to imagine it 😊  

 WHEN now has four employees and I am very proud that just a couple of months ago, we introduced our maternity policy, which is up there with the best in the sector, 6 months full pay. We may be small, but we certainly strive to practice what we preach and role model best practice. If we can do it… 

There’s no doubt that WHEN is going to be in a different place when Nicola returns from her maternity leave and we’ll be looking forward to welcoming her back.

Alice Chilver

You can find out more about Nicola here. 

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