I READ a line recently that has stayed with me: “People doing the work need to be in the room.” [Ahanna Anaba, founder of Women in Trade speaking to the publication Shipping and Freight Resource]. It is a simple idea. In international trade, it is still not how many meetings run.
Walk into a freight forwarder, a customs brokerage or a shipping line and you will find women doing a large share of the operational work. They input data, classify the goods, chase the documents, fix the entries that go wrong and keep the client calm when a container is held. Then look at who sits at the table when decisions are made about systems, strategy or policy. Too often the people who understand the problem best read the minutes afterwards.
When I started in this industry, there were very few women in it, and sexism was out in the open. You learnt to know your subject better than anyone else in the room, because that was the only way to be taken seriously.
Things have improved. More women now hold customs broker licences, run their own businesses and sit on industry boards. But improved is not the same as finished. Women are still under-represented in senior roles and where trade policy is shaped.
Getting into the room is half of it. Being heard once you are there is the other half. Most of us have sat through meetings where a few voices take up all the air, and the person who knows how the process actually works says nothing. The business loses either way. Both sides have a job to do. Whoever chairs the meeting can ask the quieter person what they think. Women who are invited need to speak up and bring the evidence with them. Inclusion is something you practise, and everyone at the table has a part in it.
Trade does not stand still. Tariff concessions change, free trade agreements come into force, and regulators change their systems and their expectations. If you stop learning, you fall behind quickly and in this work, falling behind means errors, penalties and unhappy clients. Keeping up with industry developments is part of the job.
Knowledge alone will not get things done. You also need to know who to call: the officer who can explain why a shipment is held, the broker in another port who has seen the problem before, the association contact who can raise an issue with the regulator. Those relationships take years to build. You build them through industry events, committees and training, and by helping people when they ask.
I would encourage every woman in trade to treat her network as seriously as her technical knowledge. Join the association(s). Put your hand up for the committee. Network. Find a mentor, and be one.
I want women to push for inclusion in their organisations where their skills warrant it. That raises a hard question. Who decides what the skills are?
Too often it is the people already in the room, and they are probably not women. They tend to value what they themselves bring, and they may not see the operational knowledge that keeps the business running. Technical expertise, sound judgement under pressure and the ability to settle a difficult client are skills. They should count when seats at the table are handed out.
I do not have a neat answer. Organisations can make it fairer by being clear about what each role actually requires, by asking the people who do the work which skills matter, and by noticing who keeps being left out. Women can help themselves by putting their achievements on the record rather than waiting to be noticed. Nobody else will keep that record for you.
If you are doing the work, you have earned your place in the conversation. Ask for it and bring your knowledge and your network with you.
The room is better with you in it.