GDST Lead is an innovative programme designed to allow young women to develop the transferable skills necessary to become future leaders and entrepreneurs. As Blackheath High takes part for the first time in 2024, Year 12 student Isabella tells us about the experience. 

My group of six Year 12 students was really excited to be chosen to represent Blackheath High for the first time in the GDST Lead Programme.  

The 2024/5 launch event was hosted at the London School of Economics and I found it very insightful to spend the day in a university environment, surrounded by undergrad students. We began the day by meeting girls from the 22 other GDST schools taking part in the programme and attending a welcome talk which outlined what the year ahead would look like. We heard from keynote speaker, Fleur Emery-Rice, a successful female entrepreneur and GDST alumna from Portsmouth High School. Fleur spoke about the importance of having ideas and always being curious, which resonated with us all. 

This was followed by two workshops, the first of which was hosted by two women from the company ‘Hoopla!’, who showed us how to use improvisation exercises to practice actively listening to understand your peers, and to practice backing what we say and having confidence in our contributions to discussions. The second workshop was hosted by Nikita Khandwala – writer, entrepreneur & futureproofer - who led a conversation about social enterprises. Nikita introduced design thinking principles and encouraged us to think about the root of problems we want to solve - not just the surface level issue.  

At the end the day we met our mentor Dr Paroma Bhattacharya who is very experienced and a Doctor of Economics at the LSE.  She will be giving us additional guidance throughout year. During our conversation with Dr Paroma, she helped us structure our thoughts and initial concepts and gave us advice on what our next steps should be. We really enjoyed the day and left the event feeling very positive and ready to develop our ideas even further.   

Written by Isabella, Year 12, Sixth Form