‘So,’ I say, ‘what do you think you might to do for a career?’
‘Diplomat,’ says the first young woman.
‘Yeah, diplomat,’ the second says.
‘Us, too,’ say the third and fourth members of the group.
As part of #girlsday, or #toechtertag, the British Embassy in Vienna this year invited young women to apply to shadow me, as Ambassador, for a typical day at work. The goal was to encourage young women to consider career options in predominantly male-dominated fields.
We also hoped to give our visitors, and the wider public, a better idea of what ambassadors actually do.
So far as we know, we were the only embassy to take part, alongside 168 Viennese businesses.
The applicants for our British Embassy #girlsday were so good that we had to take on four participants, one more than planned: Paula (16), Eva (17), Joyce (16) and Nicole (17). Their programme on the day included joining a weekly team meeting at the embassy; attending the opening of a regional conference on the Western Balkans; coming to a meeting with Martin Engelberg, head of the Austria-UK friendship group in the Austrian Parliament; and a visit to the OSCE at the Hofburg. I also talked to them about my own career, and answered their questions.
I was hugely grateful to the young women for visiting the embassy and to all the participants in all three British missions who met them. I was delighted that they said they found it interesting; that it had firmed up their interest in diplomacy; and that they were interested in a career in diplomacy themselves.
As for the Foreign Office, we not only have recently appointed a special envoy for gender-related issues world-wide, but are committed to promoting a balanced gender ratio within our own organisation. We aim to have 50% women among staff by 2020 and 39% women among leadership by 2019.
This stuff really matters. I hope Joyce, Paula, Eva and Nicole thrive in their future studies and careers, and I will see some or all of them as diplomats – or maybe even ambassadors – before too long.