Rhian Parry is the MD of Workplace Worksafe ltd and Windfarm Worksafe. In 2018 she won the Womenspire Entrepreneur Award which set her on a bit of a mission….

I set up the business in 2005, when I say I set up the business I mean I went out and brought a laptop and a fax machine from comet and started making calls to potential customers to see if they would buy products from me. From these beginnings we now employ over ten people based in Ruthin and have customers all over the UK & Europe and this year we are looking to expand further and enter the global marketplace.

One of the main things I am passionate about is helping others, giving back to my community, from employing young people and working parents to helping my team achieve opportunities or personal challenges I.e. to complete a mud obstacle course, gain a career in accounting, printing, sales, admin.

I want all my team to have opportunities where they can earn more money, bonuses and growth, it has to be a two-way street but I love developing people and helping them move along and up the career ladder. That’s not to say everyone wants to climb the ladder, but if we can support and offer good employment opportunities for our team that is also a large part of what we do here.

My background.

I am a local girl brought up on a rural farm in Denbighshire, I moved away to pursue a career and acceptance - it was not easy being gay in North Wales at the time. I got to work for some really great companies and was the first person in my family to buy a house, have a company car and to really travel all over the UK and further afield, these days I am lucky enough to travel to different countries and experience other cultures as part of my job.

There are not many women in our sector currently and I am one of the few women in the UK managing a Health and Safety Business. I have been in the industry for over 20 years! We cover sectors such as manufacturing, energy, and a whole range of different types of customers.

Part of the reason why I love the energy (wind farm) sector is the opportunities given to women, if I was 20 years younger I would definitely be a wind farm technician or some role within wind farms and looking to work my way up, the opportunities for women are vast and I really honestly haven’t found any discrimination within the sector, it’s a hard sector and a blunt sector but if you know your stuff then you will do well.

With the work that organisations like Chwarae Teg are doing, and importantly, our customers across the engineering and renewables energy sector, it’s exciting to be a woman in business.

There are now lots of support networks and business support available as more and more companies are seeing the value of having diverse employees.

My involvement with Chwarae Teg.

Back in 2018 I was extremely honored and quite literally taken aback to have won the Womenspire 2018 award. I remember talking to the Chwarae Teg team and saying I was not worthy of winning it as I am not a scientist, super clever or have some business which is super sexy - I sell work boots and branded workwear, I am pretty sure it’s bottom of the list of cool vocations.

And it was only when it was explained to me that there are so many women out there that have jobs like mine, and we never talk about it because we feel they are unsexy, we forget it’s just as an important job as the others - we keep the wheels rolling round in the background.

We feel like an imposter when someone says well done for doing what you do, I know I say it – I just sell safety boots, lots of others do the same about their companies - I think the difference is we are all about the customer service, how can we help our customers.

I came away from the awards night and made it a mission of mine to let all of the women in my business / volunteering / family / friend’s circle know that between them I am inspired each day by how hard they work and how well they are doing, they all inspire me, and I learn from each and every one.

I am a massive supporter of a gender equal Wales. I believe that all women should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential in life and work.

Two years ago I joined the Women’s Equality Network (WEN) Wales mentoring scheme to learn about women in politics and public life, it’s something I had always thought was above my place in life, but found it utterly brilliant and so useful. You learn about different things and are surrounded by women who are total rock stars and what I loved was we all got to meet the various women politicians from the different parties in Wales, and the one thing that stood out was each one was respectful and wanted to get more women into the sector, irrelevant of beliefs they were so open to helping other women in getting involved.

I feel like Chwarae Teg set me on a path where my job is to try and inspire other women to be brave and bold, and to say “Why shouldn’t I do this? Rhian has”, to give someone a bit of courage to take the step, to believe they can do it.

I get to travel the world with work, I own a multimillion-pound company, and I have invented things for global companies which have been used around the world, all of this because I am good at fixing problems!

My top tips for women starting out.

1. If you’re the most knowledgeable person in the room, move to a different room - how will you ever learn otherwise
2. Have a plan. Work hard, good things come to people who work hard, but have a plan. I normally have an A, B, C, and a D, not everything you do is going to be successful. I have made some epic business mistakes in my time, but also some brilliant moves – not everything works – think your MR/MRs wibble wobble, in business you need to take the knock and get back up.
3. I think that business, like life, is really like a Ferris wheel, when you’re on top it’s such an amazing feeling, but be mindful you will be on the bottom at some point, the lows are utterly terrible, and the highs like nothing else you will experience, they both go hand in hand there is no getting away from it.

If I could speak to my younger self, the one which was bullied for being different, for being from a different area to where we lived, for not being Welsh enough, for being gay and struggling with my sense of identity and worth, it would be to say you can do this, and everything you go through helps you do what you do today.

I think through Chwarae Teg I have learnt to own it and say to other women we all go through terrible times, but we can do this and smash it because you may not think you’re brave and brilliant, but you are, we can do this together, there are women who want to help you achieve your goals if you reach out to them.