Lowri Evans, a Director in DG Competition at the European Commission spoke very frankly about her own experiences, for which the whole audience was very appreciative.

Initially, she gave us some facts and figures about the make-up of DG Competition including: 33% of employees are female; and 26% of employees speak 4 or more languages. Women are not well represented in the Commission at a manager level: in Lowri's view, this is due to a lack of confidence and self-belief which means that, generally speaking, women do not tend to put themselves forward for promotion. There are a number of initiatives being introduced by the Commission now to promote flexible working and to encourage people to take their full quota of holidays.

Lowri then talked about her career starting with when she trained as an accountant with Deloittes, joining the Commission, through to today where she manages 80 people as Director of a unit in DG Competition which deals with a range of issues including financial services and liberalisation of the professions.

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