One of the North West’s most successful dealmakers has admitted she fears a condition called ‘tall poppy syndrome’.
Nicola Merritt is CEO of Cortus Advisory and was speaking at BusinessCloud’s roundtable ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8th, run in association with GM Business Growth Hub.
Tall poppy syndrome refers to a phenomenon in which people criticise or attack someone due to their success.
Award-winning Merritt admitted: “We were talking earlier about tall poppy syndrome and that is perhaps what I am fearing a little at the moment.
“We’ve done very well at Cortus – we’ve had success and celebrated and then I go, ‘oh, no, people are going to come and cut me down’, because we don’t like success in this country, do we?
We think ‘am I right to be successful?’ ‘What will my family think?’ ‘What will people think in our environment?’
“And again, that’s something in our culture which needs to change. We need to lift each other up. We need to celebrate successes. We need to hold people out as role models.
“But I think there’s something at the moment in our culture that just tips the other way. And if someone’s successful, people will think ‘well they can’t have been a good mother at the same time’, or ‘they must be greedy.’
“I believe that in five-10 years’ time, it will have changed and those things just should disappear.”
Merritt said it would be great to wake up and realise there was no need for a Women in Business Forum because the playing field had evened up.
“There’s a lot of talented people that just don’t have the exposure, don’t have the platform, don’t have the stage, and then don’t believe they have a voice, because the world is not set up to allow them to have that voice in many industries,” she said.
“I recruited a female partner a few months ago. I didn’t recruit her because she was female, I recruited her because she was there on merit and she rang me a couple of weeks after accepting the contract and said, ‘I’m pregnant, so obviously I’ll step away from the role and let you find someone else’.
“I said ‘absolutely not. I recruited you because you’re the best person to do that job and I’ve not got a short-term view’.”
Merritt recalled the conversation she had. “I told her: ‘You know, you might be out of the business for six to nine months, or whatever, a year. It doesn’t matter. In the long-term, we’ll work with you to still create that role’.”
She was joined on the roundtable by: Susanna Lawson co-founder, OneFile and Circle of Trust; Alison Ross, chief people and operations director, Auto Trader UK; Janine Smith, director, GM Business Growth Hub; Sharon Amesu, Northwest Business Leadership Team; Lisa Morton, founder and CEO, Roland Dransfield PR; Clare Roberts, CEO, Kids Planet; Kathy Cowell OBE DL, group chairman, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust; Alison Salas, senior marketing manager, Rochdale Development Agency; Shru Morris, CEO Designate at DSW; Tiffany Thorn, founder & CEO, BiVictriX Therapeutics Ltd; Beckie Taylor, co-founder Tech Returners and Empower; Chris Stott, managing partner, KPMG Manchester; Amanda Ruddiman, director, corporate finance. KPMG; Kirsty Smith, KPMG Emerging Giants team; Emma Birchall, partner, JS (Jackson Stephen); and Christy Foster, managing director, The Nursery Store.