Sponsored article: Celebrating influential women across the drinks industry
Lou Pollitt
Category & Insights Director – Lucky Saint
What has been your experience as a woman working in the drinks industry?
I’ve been at Lucky Saint for two years now and it’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience.
I started my career in consumer goods at Innocent Drinks, and it was the first time that I was able to see women in roles that I could aspire to. I didn’t necessarily realise at the time, but seeing someone modelling where you want to get to is such a confidence boost to believing you can achieve it yourself.
What challenges and obstacles have you personally overcome?
I still spend a lot of time at networking events with a disproportionate number of men, and it can be hard to break into the camaraderie, especially as someone relatively new to the hospitality industry.
I’m thankful that my Dad instilled in me a love of cask ale and the pub – it’s amazing what an unlock it can be to prove you know the difference between a Best Bitter and a Pale Ale and have an opinion on tap sparklers!
How is female equality enabled at your own organisation?
We have a majority female leadership team at Lucky Saint, and several of us have families and work part time. I feel incredibly grateful that I have the opportunity to balance family life with a leadership role for such a brilliant brand.
We very much try and educate the whole team on the challenges faced by women in the workplace.
Since the last round of IWD events we have hosted the Co-op’s ‘Raising the Glass’ Network for women in the drinks industry at our pub in Marylebone, and some of the team have joined a network for women looking to understand finance and investing.
Several of our monthly guest-speaker breakfasts (attended by everyone across the company) have focussed on topics that would more traditionally have been discussed by women alone, including the menopause and the specific challenges of being a women diagnosed with ADHD.
This enables more open discussion after the event and prompts us to evolve our policies in the most inclusive way.
What opportunities does your organisation offer for gender-blind career advancement?
We aren’t a huge multinational, which gives us more flexibility to treat people as individuals and champion different strengths and diverse opinions.
Our flexible and hybrid working policies definitely help to contribute to the gender balance within the team.
Can you tell us about positive experiences where inclusivity has helped you in business?
I feel incredibly proud of the inclusive nature of our product – we believe the greatest reward of drinking is the social connection and not the alcohol.
We have an equal split of men and women in the wider team, and we go above and beyond to try and encourage diversity of opinion to get the best outcome for the business.
Finding allies along the way also really helps – the positive impact of small actions on female confidence in the workplace can be huge.
If someone has put their head above the parapet to speak out and share an opinion it doesn’t have to be much more than ‘I agree’, but it can make all the difference in whether you’d put your hand up to answer a question next time.
