Why is building connections so important and so much fun?
Networking can feel daunting at first – but it can also be one of the most rewarding parts of your career. In this article, Tanya Dolan, co-founder of Female Lawyers Breakfast Networking (FLBN), shares how building connections has shaped her journey and why creating space for community and connection at every stage of your career is so important.
Female Lawyers Breakfast Networking (FLBN)
One of our biggest drivers within FLBN is to encourage networking between junior and senior professionals and help to create a forum to introduce networking as early as possible within people’s careers. FLBN gives unique opportunities to speak to lawyers and other professionals at all levels of their careers and to network with people they may not otherwise have had the opportunity to meet.
It also creates a pathway for increasing social mobility in the workplace by offering regular networking opportunities for everyone. The FLBN events are typically around 2 hours and apart from 15 minutes where the host organisation is given the opportunity to showcase its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, this time is all used for networking.
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We have an FLBN LinkedIn group with over 1,000 members and this is where we post about our FLBN events and encourage people to post about any DEI related events that people may wish to attend. This has also helped to create a sense of community with FLBN where we have people who have also built their connections outside of the FLBN events by connecting with others in the FLBN LinkedIn group! We also encourage people to use the hashtag #FLBN when posting about events so others can have an idea of how much fun they have been if they have not been to one of our events before. Through FLBN we have also been able to raise awareness of the great work of other networks and introducing networks to each other – we are all stronger together!
I very much hope that people reading this article are inspired to build their connections and see the value in encouraging others to do so to.
Tanya Dolan is Senior Legal Counsel at AstraZeneca and Co-Founder of the Female Lawyers Breakfast Networking group (FLBN).
Tanya is the UK Co-Chair of the International Aviation Women’s Association (IAWA) and a volunteer with LawCare. She is part of the UK DEI Legal Group within AstraZeneca, which is a group of lawyers across the London, Cambridge and Macclesfield offices working together on DEI initiatives which are focused on supporting a more diverse and inclusive environment for future joiners to the legal profession. This includes working together on AstraZeneca legal internship programmes and mentoring schemes in partnership with Aspiring Solicitors, the Stephen Lawrence Scholarship Scheme and helping to raise awareness of the DEI Legal Group’s diversity and inclusion efforts across AstraZeneca.
Her passion for promoting and supporting women in the legal profession began during her time as an aviation lawyer in private practice. She was deeply involved in EDI efforts within the aviation industry, serving as Chair of Funding and Finance Strategy for the Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter and in her role as UK Co-Chair of IAWA. In these roles, she played a key part in bringing IAWA scholarships to the UK to expand opportunities for young women studying aviation and aerospace, and she organised the event that led to the launch of the government-led Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter in July 2018 at the Farnborough Air Show by Theresa May. In recognition of her contributions to equity, diversity, and inclusion in the aviation and aerospace sectors, she was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS).
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