When it comes to making big changes happen, reach out to those already in power – you’d be surprised at what happens. I think we talk ourselves out of raising our voices because we think, “Why would someone listen to me?” But I sent emails to women I respected highly, to women who had achieved what I wanted to achieve. I had no name. Nobody knew who I was. And I heard back from Sophie Walker, the leader of the Women’s Equality Party who became my mentor through all of this. Don’t forget the power of social media either. It gets a bad rep, but how many women’s voices wouldn’t be heard, if we didn’t have social media? Use it as the free marketing and networking tool that it is.

Remember the power you have within your own organisation. If you’re working in a company and you want to make change, give it a go. At HSBC, they launched a flexible working podcast and they got people from outside the organisation to come on the podcast and talk about what they’re doing. It was set up by two employees who wanted to change things internally and they approached the CEO and said, “We want to do this, it’s a great idea”, and he gave them a budget and off they went and did it. This is a great way to make change happen, to ask those at the top and make yourself heard – there’s usually a budget for change that you don’t know about and we all hold more individual power than we realise.