FCO women’s stories: Kara Owen

In the lead up to International Women’s Day on Friday, we are featuring the stories of women who work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as guest posts across the FCO bloggers’ network.

Kara Owen is my Deputy Head of Mission here in Paris and I’m delighted to have her as a guest blogger today to highlight just some of the challenges and opportunities she faces as a working Mum in a senior role. 

Peter Ricketts

Writing ’a day in the life’ of a Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) is quite a challenge, because I can genuinely say no two days are quite the same

I’m currently DHM in Paris. This title may seem strange to non-diplomats, but it is basically the ‘number two’ job at an Embassy or High Commission, or what we diplomats call ‘posts’.

Between 2005-2009, I was DHM in Hanoi. If I’m trying to describe the job to private sector friends, I often say the ambassador is like Chairman of the Board. S/he has a very outward facing role in which they use their contacts and influencing skills to achieve our political and commercial objectives.

They, with Ministers, set the goals of the UK’s work in country. The DHM, however, is like a mix of the CEO and Chief Operating Officer or Managing Director of a business. Our portfolios contain more subject ‘stretch’ than other jobs.

I am responsible for the running on the UK’s operation in France (offices in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Bordeaux). I monitor delivery of the business plan, allocate resources, oversee HR, finance and other corporate services, as well as the security of our mission.

In France, I also oversee our work with the French on foreign policy issues, our work to understand French domestic politics, and our communications. I also lead on the whole team’s preparedness for crisis response. With 19.3 million British visitors to France per year, and 400,000 residents, well as 400k second homes owned by British people, we need to be ready at any time to respond to an incident involving British nationals.

The job is fantastically rewarding and really stretching.

I work with a great bunch of staff that really get a kick out of the work that they do. France is endlessly fascinating and our work with the Frenchcovers a huge variety of issues. Any given day can include meetings with senior French officials, established or up-and-coming politicians (who may be the UK’s key contacts in 10-15 years time), internal meetings to resolve urgent or strategic issues, crisis planning, mentoring sessions with junior staff.

We host seminars on issues of interest to the UK and France – which we’ll do [this Friday] for the Foreign Secretary’s Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, on which we and the French are working closely.

Other times, it might be a dinner in honour of a visiting minister, or occasionally something starry such as using a great British brand, like the première of the new James Bond film, to make and maintain contacts.

The biggest challenge in a job like this is to work out how to spend my time. How to balance urgent issues with making space to reflect and think strategically; as well as how to balance internal leadership with external outreach and how to keep my energy levels up. Balancing work and life and energy drainers with energy boosters is a true challenge.

That’s my other big role – as a Mum.

My previous role as Head of Diversity and Equality for the FCO gave me exposure to plenty of parents working at a high level and helped me prepare for this role. Of course it’s challenging to balance the significant hours involved with family life. But as our High Commissioner in South Africa, Nicola Brewer, once told me – quoting Val Gooding, former CEO of BUPA – that senior women shouldn’t make their jobs look too hard or younger women won’t want to do them.

I think she’s right. It is hard, but at a senior level you can often tap into support that you don’t have at a more junior level.

So, as long as I feel I’m making a difference and changing things for the better – which is more obvious some days than others – I feel I can make the bargain work.

• Follow @FCOHumanRights on Twitter #IWD #womensday
• Map showing UK government action to empower women across the globe.