IF YOU look at the main image carefully enough, you will see Jayne Doherty, who was on our Ones To Watch in 2024 list, which we published in January.

Doherty, a health and social impact entrepreneur, board trustee for two non-profits, successful property investor and developer, youth mentor, gender equity ambassador, and philanthropist, is one part of a four-person exec team that is the face of the Brown Skin Girls Network (BSGN). 

The network was initiated to elevate Black women and support their journey into and within positions of leadership. Professional women in England face an almost impenetrable ‘concrete ceiling’ when it comes to career progression, according to The University of Manchester and Lancaster University. 

Concerned with the fact that numbers of Black women working at senior levels in UK organisations remain distressingly low, despite the increasing efforts to develop a diverse leadership pipeline, BSGN aims to help redress the balance. 

The group kicked-off with a bang last year, hosting their first event, an intimate meeting of Black female entrepreneurs, senior leaders, influencers and community leaders, in partnership with NatWest and the London Metropolitan Police. 

Having hosted their fourth event earlier this year, Linda Onyechi, who works alongside Doherty, Anya James and Jane John-Lewis on the core steering team for BSGN, told the Voice more about the movement. 

“Each of us has our reasons for why we joined the network and why it was important to do that but ultimately, we realised what we were missing within our professional careers is a real sense of sisterhood. 

“And when I mean sisterhood, I’m talking about sisters who you can come to and say, this is my problem at work. What do I do? Or I wanna do XY, and Z, and I don’t know how to do it. 

“Or, oh, my God, I love what you’re doing in your profession. Look how you’re achieving so many goals. I wanna be around such people. I want my circle to be a reflection of who I want to be, even if I’m not completely there yet as well. And without all the backbiting and the bitchiness and the trying to bring each other down. 

“That was the one thing on which we all agreed on. When we set the network up, there’s going to be none of that, none of that whatsoever. It’s going to be positive, receptive energy coming in from our group.” 

We’ve already told you about the many hats Doherty wears. When you understand that Onyechi is a lawyer, Director and Co-Founder of Titan Solicitors and entrepreneur with special interests in property management, James is a Systems Director of 14-19 Education, Careers and Progression Senior Education Consultant for local Authority, business owner – Education reform and consultancy, and John Lewis is a Medical Technology Consultant – Surgical Robotics, Sports Medicine, Pain Therapy CEO of JC Rising Property Ltd Development and bonified property investor, you begin to understand they are women of serious intention. 

They’re not alone. 

Underpinning the positive and proactive energy embodied by BSGN are ‘The Elevators’. 

Onyechi explained: “We decided, as Black women, let’s look at us inwardly and decide what it is we need in order to feel very fulfilled. 

“And we thought, definitely mentorship. It’s important to have people who have paved the way for us. People who we admire and people who we can take direction from.” 

She added: “We wanted a platform where our members can look at the women we call ‘Elevators’ within our network and see they’re trailblazers. 

“Highly educated women who are able to then steer them in the right direction through love and support. So mentorship was important. That’s one of our core pillars.” 

You can check out their website for more information on the esteemed names that are affiliated to the network already. But the value doesn’t stop there. 

“(We have) our retreats. The self-care element, the thing that Black women, I feel are so very much under-appreciated within the community in itself, that we often leave ourselves behind

when it comes to self care.”  

She added: “I personally, I don’t. I look after myself really well. 

“But also recognising that I might be an anomaly because a lot of Black women don’t, we put ourselves last. 

“The retreats element was like, even if you sketch out in your yearly diary, ‘Okay, I might not be able to put myself first because of finances, time, resources, you know, lack of help, but I’m going to give myself the BSGN yearly retreat to do so, because these women will pamper me. They will look after my mind, they will look after my physical health, they will look after my spiritual health’. 

“We do it all in our retreat. 

“Every single aspect of our retreat covers every single nurturing pain point that the Black woman experiences year in, year out. So the retreat element is something we said is a must for us.” 

Docherty added: “When we were finding out what our target market wanted, it was clear Black women don’t have a group of like-minded women to chat with. It’s not something a lot of women do, because they just don’t have that community. They don’t have the circle or the trust within their groups to say, ‘I want to travel with them, because going away sometimes is full of drama’.” 

Put succinctly, the BSGN are determined ‘to empower and encourage women’ to take the next step in becoming self-sufficient and elevated towards their personal and collective ambitions. Nothing works without finance though, an important area of focus for the network’s steering team. 

Onyechi said: “Because we are a professional sisterhood and we want to help Black women entrepreneurs and we know naturally that funding is an issue within the Black community, regardless, but even more so with women, I think 0.004 per cent of Black women access public funding options or grants that are available in the United Kingdom or are given access. 

“So funding was something we definitely wanted to provide to our black sisters in the community.” 

She added: “Right now we do that by signposting. We’re currently partnering with different organisations, and where there is funding opportunities in regards to grants, we’re signposting our members.  But we want to get to a point where we’re actually providing funds through our own initiative as well. 

“Exposure will do that for us, and research will do that for us, too. So we know our future plans, and how we intend to really service that particular pillar that we offer in our community.” 

With mentorship, retreats and funding forming three of the four pillars around which the framework for BSGN is built, networking is the fourth and last pillar which makes up the base. 

This year will see the group ‘amping up’ their activity as they work towards increasing network participation by at least 30 per cent and attracting even more ‘Elevators’. 

And just for the record, while the BSGN focus for now is very much based in the UK, it’s not limited to these shores in its entirety. Onyechi enthused: “Networking is a pinnacle part of this whole community element. 

“We provide opportunities throughout the year where we do face-to-face networking events. We just finished doing one in Nigeria, in Abuja. 

“We’ve done brunches where we’ve worked with the UKI Black Business Show, Black women in business brunches. 

“We’ve done the ‘Elevators’ evening. So we’ve done different networking events, and we continue to provide opportunities for our members to meet, connect and foster relationships.. 

“So many beautiful things have come out of our networking events, where the women that have attended have then formulated their own groups to set up business or organisations within themselves. 

“That’s just because they’ve been able to have access to being around other women. That’s what blossoms in a room, and the energy is fantastic.”