Our story: how the Nonpareil Network was born
Matching suits, work life balance, meetings in the garden and having each other’s backs at work.
Co-founders Helen Sandford-Taylor and Hannah Poulton talk about how and why they were inspired by their own positive working relationship to start the Nonpareil Network.
Helen: I first met Hannah almost 10 years ago when we first worked together and turned up in identical suits but instead of being awkward we had a good laugh about it. I knew I liked her instantly. Hannah is great to work with, extremely diligent and also exceptionally loyal to her colleagues and staff. Most importantly she has a fantastic sense of humour and even when having some of the toughest days at the office she could always be relied upon to make me smile. Whilst we work well together, I also consider Hannah to be a great friend. She is always fantastic company.
Hannah: Helen and I clicked immediately when we worked together in the corporate world and we soon formed a strong alliance where we looked out for each other. It never occurred to either of us that we needed to compete - despite the fact that some of the people around us seemed to expect us to be in competition, or even to actively dislike each other, simply because we were two women in similar leadership roles.
Helen: I think we both knew it would achieve much better results for us, our teams and our colleagues if we worked together and supported each other. Together, we achieved some great successes, both in building our teams and working together to deliver strategic change on some interesting and challenging projects.
Hannah: Helen’s ability to balance work and personal life whilst giving 100% to whatever part of life she is focused on at the time has always inspired me and I’ve also learned a lot about strategic thinking through working alongside her. Working together now and in the past, Helen has always been very respectful of my work life balance and how I choose to spend my free time, despite the fact our home lives and commitments are very different.
Helen: When I first had the idea of setting up a network I knew I wouldn’t do it alone and so Hannah was the obvious choice. I’m so glad she wanted to work on it together as she immediately started to make it happen. That’s what she is like; she is a go-getter and a doer, she just makes things happen and she makes it look easy at the same time. She has a great understanding of people and that is what makes her so brilliant at communicating.
Hannah: When Helen first sounded me out about starting a network together, I had absolutely no hesitation in saying yes. I jumped at the chance to work with her again and from the moment we first discussed it, it was happening, as we work so well together and complement each other’s strengths. The idea just grew from there. It helped that we were in the midst of the Covid pandemic at the time so both of us had quite a bit of time on our hands to think about it and focus on it, but I soon knew it was something I wanted to focus on, even when things got back to normal!
Helen: Lots of video, garden and kitchen table meetings (depending on the Covid rules at the time!) were involved in the planning, and our idea started to grow, inspired very much by our experience of working together and ‘having each other’s backs’, plus the fact that, if you take each of us at face value, our personal situations are totally different - but in reality we have lots in common and not only have a great working relationship but also a great friendship. Had we not worked together, though, we’d almost certainly never have met as our social circles and our lives outside of work are pretty different due to the fact I have three children and Hannah is childfree. We do both have spaniels though! Although my social life doesn’t revolve around the children, inevitably I’ve formed friendships with other Mums, and although I really value them, they don’t give me an outlet to talk about work and career.
Hannah: We felt we were quite lucky to have met through work and developed our friendship as we did - we could probably both count on the fingers of one hand how many other working relationships like that we’ve had in our careers. So, we felt there was an opportunity to try and bring more like-minded but diverse women together and create more of those relationships that would otherwise only happen by chance.
Helen: We then started to think about some of the other common challenges that professional women face in the second half of their careers and that was when the idea really started to take shape when we thought about how we could use our own experience to help through putting on events, creating online content, personal development opportunities and other types of support.
Hannah: Helen never fails to make me laugh when we are working together. We divide up the different parts of the work according to our strengths, but we both seem to be able to bring a little bit extra to each other’s work. I like analogies, and I’d use the analogy that with whatever we are working on at the time, one of us bakes the cake and the other puts the cherry on the top! For example, I’ll write something, Helen will read it and say “I really like it, but how about this?” - and with the addition of that one small thing, it goes from good to great!
Helen: It’s been great fun so far but also challenging (especially getting to grips with new tools and technology) and a good opportunity for us to both do something a bit different and get outside our comfort zones - which is something we really believe in the importance of doing. We are really looking forward to seeing the Nonpareil Network continue to grow and we are enjoying meeting all the other brilliant professional women that we are starting to bring together and seeing other strong connections being made!
Our next networking event is Menopause at Work - Leading Positive Change, taking place on Wednesday 30th March 2022, and you can reserve your place here.
Written by co-founders of the Nonpareil Network: Helen Sandford-Taylor and Hannah Poulton
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