Charity Mafuba gains insight to Lesley Wan’s motivation

Lesley Wan

Charity Mafuba gains insight to Lesley Wan’s motivation

Lesley Wan

Lesley Wan is General Counsel at FBN Bank, founder of Through the Looking Glass Charity for young people and the Eagle Club for women in senior leadership.

You are very active in philanthropy and ‘giving back’, with organisations such as Through the Looking Glass Charity, which you founded on the premise of enabling gifted underprivileged children access to work experience in the City that will spearhead their future careers. What inspired you to do this?

Growing up in New Zealand, my mum always encouraged us to help other people whenever we could and so “giving back” is second nature to me. However, it was only after I saw the heroic effort of a close friend, Paul Alan Smith, who raised US$100,000 in aid of the Boxing Day tsunami disaster in 2004, that I realised I must make a more significant and sustainable contribution to help those less fortunate than me. This guy was a successful and talented Hollywood agent working all hours, but he always found time to do the right thing.

It was eye-opening and inspiring to watch someone selflessly and humbly help strangers in need. He showed me just how simple it can be to make a real difference in someone else’s life, and so, I now honour him for giving me the courage to set up this charity – www.lookingglassuk.com.

I am still in touch with many of our young alumni and am so proud to see them go onto successful roles in the City and beyond. One of our former students is regularly featured in Forbes magazine for his exciting tech start up; another secured a US$50,000 basketball scholarship to study in Maine and later plans to read law.

Another was the first in her family to go to University and graduate with a 2:1 in History from Cambridge; and one of our kids who was destined to become a mechanic changed his mind after work experience at EY and went on to do exceptionally well, graduating with a 2:1 in Finance from Southampton University. He is now a role model in his community for other young people!

There are so many more wonderful stories I would love to share but I do want to acknowledge that their successes would not have been realised without the support of our incredible teachers who facilitate this opportunity and our progressive corporates who provide our students with work experience. I am so grateful to them all. This is cool and what makes the huge amount of personal time I invest in the charity so worthwhile.

You studied law and qualified as a lawyer in New Zealand. What made you decide to practice law in the United Kingdom?

As a junior lawyer I was always very entrepreneurial and persuaded my partners and a large Australasian corporation, BIL, to fly me to Laos as their legal advisor to assess the legal and commercial risks of investing in a US$100M forestry plantation project, followed by supporting the same in connection with a significant infrastructure project in Vietnam. After this exciting 3-month stint in the Golden Triangle, I pondered my next career steps. The CEO suggested I speak to his then general counsel, Dame Patsy Reddy (who is now Governor-General of New Zealand) for advice. Dame Patsy was incredibly supportive; shared her insights and encouraged me to head to London, to enhance my life experience and gain international finance experience. This advice from such an impressive senior female executive changed the course of my life in such a positive way, and so I try to do the same and pay it forward.

In a world where gender inequality has been a major impediment to women’s career progression, how has the Eagle Club, of which you are both Founder and President enabled women to achieve their well-deserved success?

I love the Eagle Club. Together, we have built a powerful, diverse and dynamic female network of trusted friends and peers whose primary objective is to support and empower each other to reach our potential and overcome impediments to progression. Excitingly, we are now going international.

One of the key factors identified among junior women in business in my former role, was a lack of confidence which held them back from progressing in their careers. Simply put, many women did not believe they had the right attributes to progress into new/more senior roles, or the courage to ask for remuneration that reflected their worth.

Interestingly, I discovered during my research and discussions with senior women across industries that a lack of confidence is also a primary theme which comes up time and again, so it was important to me to create a safe environment to encourage women to be vulnerable and talk about this concept of “selfworth”. We have created an environment where women can contribute their thoughts and experiences and move forward. This has worked well and helped members to bond and build new friendships.

Confidence boosting in this way has really made a resoundingly positive impact on our members, with one General Counsel recently sharing on a virtual call, that she loved the Eagle Club because it not only helped her to build a strong female network which she never had before but being in the club had given her the confidence to enter the legal awards where she and her legal team were subsequently shortlisted for 8 awards (many of which they won)! Prior to being a member of the Eagle Club, she would not have entertained entering the awards.

To me this is what success looks like – I have the best seat in the house and delight in watching friends and peers blossom. ■

Charity Mafuba