North East marketing agency launches scheme to help women get into the creative industry

North East marketing agency Crystallised has launched a new mentoring programme aimed at helping young women take their first step into the world of business.

Promising free coaching and career development, the ‘Step Up’ programme follows the ‘each one, teach one’ mantra whereby knowledge, skills and experience are passed on to support other people in their ambitions and goals.

Three women from the region have been selected to take part in the scheme, which has been developed by Crystallised founder, Laura Rothwell. It will run from June to November and is designed to give young marketers the first step in their career.

Crystallised founder Laura Rothwell said: “I completely fell into marketing. It wasn’t something I understood as a career path before I was on it.

“It’s because of those early experiences, and the disparity we see in age and gender across the workforce in our sector, that we decided to offer a mentoring scheme to young women. I am now in a position to create the space and the opportunity for other women to be successful.

“We’ve adopted a philosophy where it’s all about opening a door that might otherwise have been closed; providing opportunities to people who maybe aren’t yet in the right place, or don’t yet know the right people.”

25 women applied to the mentoring programme and Caitlin Feirn, Chenxi Celine Gao and Jade Westerman were selected to take part.

The first cohort will benefit from things like dedicated mentoring hours with the Crystallised team, access to networks of entrepreneurs and professionals and a personal plan based on their aims and objectives.

In addition to their ‘Step Up’ programme, Crystallised are also going to pilot a four-day working week, with a trial planned for September. They intend to implement this across the business by March 2020, moving all staff to four days, with no reduction in pay or benefits.

Commenting on their plans, Laura added: “I’ve been keenly following the global developments around the gains associated with a reduced working week. I am hopeful that we will see similar results, albeit on a much smaller scale.”