Open Roles
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Brigadier Anna Kimber OBE joined the British Army at a time where joining the Women’s Royal Army Corps was the only option open to her. If she wanted to have children, she would have been expected to leave the Armed Forces. By the time she moved on to take up her current role as Deputy Governor & Head of Operations with the Tower of London, Anna had seen drastic and meaningful changes for women in the armed services take place. We sat down with Anna to hear about her journey, where change has been the speediest, and where it has lagged.
…Anna told us, reflecting on the fact that the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 didn’t apply to the Armed Forces until 1990, at which point women slowly became able to serve in all branches of the Armed Forces and continue their careers with children. Having joined the Army prior to these advancements, Anna hadn’t put much thought to creating change herself, rather had tailored her behaviours to fit in — to be “one of the blokes”.
What’s more, the negative aspects of culture still prevail, even if less overt than they were 30 years ago: “when we talk to people from underrepresented groups, they still see those kinds of behaviours coming through, whether it’s microaggressions, thoughtless remarks, or whether it’s an implicit bias – people are more likely to work with people who are like them, they’re more likely to appoint people like them. Those cultural aspects are still there for many people, I think.”
It wasn’t until much later in her career that Anna’s own thoughts began to shift. “My realisation was when more younger women were joining and there was a view – well […] hang on a minute, we want a female-focus[ed] network, we want to perhaps have some social media groups that are just for women. We want some support groups because the challenges are different for women.”
Noting the importance of visibility and networks, we asked Anna if there had been any role models for her to look up to in her earlier years. “I didn’t have any female role models who were more much more senior than me who had children.” Even after the laws changed, there was no one to look up to, and there were yet more barriers to having both and the challenges of motherhood and family within the Armed Forces. “My husband and I did back-to-back operational tours with three small children at home. He went to Afghanistan for six months, six days before I returned from a six month operational tour.”
Though things did progress during Anna’s tenure, such as parents no longer being allowed to be deployed simultaneously, Anna reflected that legislative change alone was not enough.
“It isn’t just about rule change […] in some areas that’s taking a little bit of time to catch up because just because you happen to have changed the rules does not mean that the organisational behaviour has changed. […] It’s going to be a process over time where we have to continually weed out behaviour that we don’t accept.”
In time, Anna became the role model that she did not have in her younger years. A senior officer, married, with three children, in an environment where, as she put it, you really are in the 1% club — a rare sight.
…Anna reflected. But being the person to break that ground can also come with challenges. “It’s really hard to be the ‘glass ceiling brigade’ because it’s quite lonely. And you are uncharted territory to a degree. It’s much easier when someone’s done it before you, and paved the way to be.”
Having left the Armed Forces to take up a role as Deputy Governor & Head of Operations at the Tower of London, Anna is ready for new and different challenges and we are energised by the prospect of watching just how far she will continue to go and how many others she will inspire.
Interview with Kate Hunter, Partner, UK Higher Education
Kate is a Partner, UK.
Her experience of senior level executive search includes Board, Chief Executive, Senior Academic and Administrative appointments globally within the Higher Education, Health and Social Care, and the Arts and Culture sector practices.
Kate began her career in the arts, working in communications roles, culminating as Head of Communications at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Kate has around 15 years’ experience of working in global higher education, both from within an institution and externally, as an advancement practitioner and an advisor to government, institutions and other stakeholders. Prior to joining Perrett Laver, Kate was Executive Director for CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Europe. CASE is a global membership association with a focus on advocacy, training, research and data to support advancement – fundraising, marketing, communications, alumni relations. Kate worked closely with HEFCE, Universities UK and Arts & Business on sector-wide initiatives to build advancement capacity, including launching a fundraising graduate trainee programme. Kate holds a BA Hons in French with Spanish.
