On Friday 6 March, Club members and guests enjoyed an excellent breakfast to celebrate International Women’s Day in the delightfully erudite surroundings of the Ampersand Bookstore and Cafe in Paddington. Guest speaker, Iqra Ahmed, inspired us as a young professional, passionate about supporting the leadership growth of other girls and young women from diverse backgrounds, and indebted to ZCSW for an award they gave her when she was at high school. We took advantage of the breakfast to present three outstanding high achieving women in our community with Zonta Yellow Rose awards – Delia Donovan, a dynamic CEO of NFPs; Moya Dodd, a soccer official and lawyer; and Sarah Whitlock, an artist, jewellery designer and industry trainer.
Iqra is a leader and innovator in all aspects of her life, and enjoys searching for challenges and seeking ways to improve processes. Professionally she has worked across the Financial Services, Human Resources and Banking industries. She has always been passionate about working with the community and in 2015 started her own Not For Profit organisation “Guiding Steps”. This organisation provides mentoring to young women from various minorities by connecting them to female leaders in their area of interests.
In 2018 she was selected by Jawun Indigenous Corporate Partnerships to complete a secondment in Broome. Following this secondment, she had continued to mentor an Indigenous student from Orange for 12 months to ensure his transition into the NAB Internship Program.
Iqra has also previously received a leadership award in 2012 while she was in high school from Zonta Club of Sydney West.
Zonta Club of Sydney 