Miriam González Durántez was named Woman of the Year 2013 on 18th November 2013 by the Women of the Future Network, in partnership with J P Morgan and the Said Business School, University of Oxford. She was presented with a certificate marking the accolade by India Gary-Martin, Managing Director, Investment Banking Technology & Operations at J P Morgan and Pinky Lilani OBE, Chairman of the Women of the Future Programme. The event marked the annual reception of the Women of the Future Network with over 150 female guests gathering at J P Morgan’s headquarters in Canary Wharf, London. Ms Durántez spoke about her work with the launch of the ‘Inspiring the Future initiative which matches employee volunteers with a range of careers-related activities requested by state schools and education centres.
The ‘Inspiring the Future: Inspiring Women’ campaign was launched on 17th October 2013 with a ‘career speed networking’ event hosted by Miriam González Durántez with 100 girls from 11 state secondary schools talking jobs and careers with 10 high profile successful women. The aim of the campaign is to see 15,000 women from a wide range of occupations going into state schools, over the next year, to talk to 250,000 young women about the range of jobs available and entry routes into them.
The campaign begins with 10 women sharing their career insights with 100 girls. The high profile women taking part in the launch include: Miriam González Durántez, Partner at Dechert LLP and the wife of Nick Clegg the DPM, Fiona Bruce, BBC journalist and presenter, Athene Donald DBE, Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge, Thea Green, CEO Nails Inc’s, Bettany Hughes, historian and broadcaster, Livia Firth, Creative Director Eco Age Ltd, Carrie Longton, Mumsnet co-founder, Carolyn McCall, CEO easyJet, Heather McGregor, entrepreneur and Financial Times columnist and Barbara Stocking DBE, former CEO Oxfam and current President of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.
About Miriam González Durántez, Partner, Dechert
Miriam is a partner at Dechert, an international law firm in London, where she heads the firms EU Trade and EU Government Affairs practice. She is married to Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister and they have three children.
Prior to joining Dechert, she was partner at DLA Piper, where she worked for six years. In her career, Miriam has been a trade negotiator at the WTO and worked in Brussels as a senior member of the cabinet for EU External Relations Commissioners Chris Patten and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, where her main responsibility was advising on EU relations with the US, the Middle East, Mediterranean countries and Latin America. She was also a senior policy advisers to the UK presidency of the EU whilst at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
She is also a non-executive director of Acciona and president of Canning House.