Dominic Carey - **HAS LEFT**

Said the following about Valerie Pope:

“Great Western Railway (GWR) is one of the biggest rail franchises in the UK, part of the First Group of companies, operating the Western network since 1996, rebranding ourselves as GWR in 2015. We employ over 6000 people across our network and we carry more than one and a half million customers over two million single journeys on 10,000 services every week. People are at the heart of our business and our ethos is that we are 'greater together'.

We are immensely blown away by the level of dedication Valerie has displayed over the last year. Her passion for promoting GWR as an inclusive work place and a great place to work has been unswerving throughout 2021, and it was especially positively impactful during Covid.

Valerie is an OBS Manager based in Plymouth. She has worked her way up through the team starting as the depot Admin, then to her current role as OBS manager, which she started on a job share with another member of the team, working into a full-time role. Valerie also worked as a mentor for the apprentice scheme and continues to mentor both her On Board Colleagues and Acting on Board Service Managers. Most recently, Valerie mentored a colleague who has now, thanks to Valerie’s support, successfully been seconded into a more senior role at Plymouth covering a maternity post.

Over the last year, Valerie has also acted as the Women in Rail (WiR) Lead for schools and universities. Throughout her time in this lead role, Valerie has been passionate about promoting the Railway as an inclusive workplace for all and passionate about inspiring girls and young women to see the opportunities that the railway presents to them. Valerie has been an inspiring female role model in other ways, notably by creating a bespoke plan for WiR to enhance their impact when they visit schools, and this was shared within the group for all regions to use. Valerie had great success visiting schools in the Plymouth area where she shared the GWR message, promoting inclusion and diversity, and rail as a great place to work for women interested in STEM, holding assemblies for inspired girls.

During the COVID pandemic when many areas shut down and it became apparent that face to face sessions in a school environment could no longer happen, she pent time working with schools local to herself and explored other ways of maintaining positive momentum. This is when Valerie looked at creating a video that would enable her to reach a wide audience despite the limitations created by Covid, promoting the railway to girls and young women by showing them virtually how anyone can do well in the UK rail industry.

Valerie spent months researching how best to do this, creating the film structure and script, working with the filmographer to work out how to direct the film. Valerie filmed in 4 different locations, with a variety of female colleagues, with the aim of creating four personal stoties that would inspire other women to join the railway.

Valerie hasn’t stopped there and is always driving to see what else she can achieve. Now she is back working with and in schools and using the film as part of the presentation.

For us, Valerie has shown complete dedication throughout her time in GWR and as part of Women in Rail. She has never been afraid of hard work and we don’t think she appreciates just how amazingly dedicated and inspiring she is. The response internally to the video has been amazing, and many colleagues are inspired by this and want to share outside of GWR with their families, and in their communities.

Jamie Kingston, Regional On Train Manager said this:

“This video is an incredible piece of work, well done Valerie! As a father of 2 girls, I feel really passionate about gender equality within GWR and I’ll be sharing this video with both Eve and Grace who I am sure will be inspired by it! That’s made me feel very proud, thank you!”

David Crome, Head of On Board said:

“Must confess to having a bit of a tear in the eye watching this. Its extraordinary.”

Ruth Busby, HR Director said:

“This is simply fabulous huge well done to you and the team who pulled this together and a big thanks to everyone who took part. It would be great to share this with the Exec team so that they’ve seen it and I’d love to be able to share it with my daughter’s new secondary school.”

Valerie has since worked to create an expanded training package so all regions are enabled to go into schools or universities and promote a positive message about UK rail as an inclusive career and also showcase GWR’s inclusive workforce ethos.

Valerie is passionate about her team that she manages, her focus is always her team, what they can learn and how she can support them in there onwards careers. Most recently an Acting OBS Manager has been seconded in to a OBS Line Manager. Valerie is a great mentor to the 117 colleagues she line managers alongside the other OBS managers at Plymouth. She is a great advocate for Women in Rail and what it means to her team. She supports all events and encourages her team to also do so which is inspiring. It’s great hearing how much the colleagues she leads enjoy their job and appreciate the positive influence Valerie has had on their careers.

Valerie is now working on the Never Mind the Gap programme, which focuses on getting Women back into the Workplace, collaborating with internal teams to create bespoke training for these ladies alongside Network Rail. This will be a two-week work based experienced course, to encourage, train, give confidence to females when reengaging with the workplace, after time away. GWR has not previously been involved in this programme, so its exiting to see the next steps. We have no doubt, with Valerie involved, what a success it will be.“