International Women's Day

International Women’s Day (March 8th), is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, and accelerating women’s equality. This International Women’s Day, we are celebrating all women companywide at South East Water, whilst highlighting four particularly inspirational women and their journey to their current role with us.

Our Customer Services Director – Tanya Sephton

Tanya had just finished her degree in Accounting and Finance when she decided that accounting wasn’t for her, and stumbled across a job with South East Water as a Capital Programme Analyst. Over 20 years with us, Tanya has progressed throughout the company, and is now our Customer Services Director; ensuring our customers’ priorities lie at the heart of all we do. Tanya’s advice is do something you enjoy, then make sure it challenges you and pushes you beyond your comfort zone.

Our Quality Manager – Helen Jones

Helen graduated with a degree in Chemistry and started her career in food testing; where she learned about quality systems. After gaining experience, she joined South East Water as our Quality Manager. Helen’s role is busy and varied and she really enjoys working with the fantastic laboratory and sampling teams. Helen’s advice is to always work hard, build up your network, look at the skills needed for your next career move and work on developing those.

Our Head of Environment – Emma Goddard

Emma had just completed her degree in Biology in 1994, when she started at South East Water on a one year contract. Her plan was to gain some experience then move back up North, however she was given a permanent position after 6 months and started an MSc in Environmental Management at Imperial College London, followed by an Advanced Diploma in Sustainability at Cambridge University, in 2004.

Emma said “I have been really fortunate as my role has evolved over time, I have had many promotions most recently becoming Head of Environment in 2018. Over the time that I have been working, environmental issues have become much more mainstream and an integral component of all that we do as a business – it is now a career of choice for many, something which wasn’t the case when I started my career in 1994.”

Our Production Work Scheduler - Lyndsay Ford

Lyndsay started working for the water industry the day after her 21st birthday with our partnership company, Clancy Group; working through roles from Planning to Highway Noticing for the Kent and Sussex areas. In 2012, Lyndsay took the opportunity to move over to South East Water as a Production Scheduler for the Kent and Sussex area, where she was able to really make this newly created position her own.

In the nearly 10 years she has been with South East Water, Lyndsay has been able to help build new maintenance systems and have a good input to how they should work, as well as training technicians and other staff on how to use them.

In additional to this, Lyndsay’s duties include servicing/ordering tools and equipment for over 20 technicians, to ordering chemicals for our 210 sites across the network. Lyndsay is also a very valued Mental Health First Aider here at South East Water, and is a Wellbeing Champion for the business.

These four women, and the hundreds of other women who work within South East Water, are perfect examples of where our company chose to #breakthebias; for a gender equal world.