Care & Caring
How to balance caring for a loved one with your work and personal life
Watch the recording of the event
About this event
Watch this panel and open discussion on the challenges faced by unpaid caregivers in the UK today. Lisa Robinson, CEO of companiions, is joined by Eleanor Mills, CEO of Noon, Fiona McDonnell, Diversity champion & Author of ‘Two Mirrors and a Cheetah’, Dorothy Cook, a companiions customer, and John Mawer, CMO of companiions.
The panel will share their personal experiences related to caring for loved ones while balancing challenges such as working full time, looking after children, illness, as well as general life and well-being. The current imbalance in the burden of care on women and what employers could do to support working carers.
About companiions
Companiions provides a simple, trusted way for people to arrange in-person, on-demand support, assistance, and company for themselves or their loved one. Many people don’t need care, but they do need a caring person to provide a helping hand. Finding the right person for your loved one can expensive, tricky to arrange and often impersonal. Companiions mobile app makes arranging help quick, easy and safe. We have thousands of caring, rated and reviewed companions, providing a wide range of in-person support, from helping with shopping, house tasks or just good old fashioned conversation. With detailed profiles, in-app video calls for pre-visit introductions, alongside leading AI powered vetting, companiions is supporting customers to make practical, informed decisions for themselves and their loved ones.
Meet the hosts
Lisa Robinson is the founder & CEO of companiions. She wanted to create a care solution for her friends, family and everyone so she gathered a group of clever, kind, ambitious people and created companiions – an app that brings people together by making it quick, easy and safe to arrange companionship. Lisa has 25 years experience leading highly successful advertising teams whilst at Amazon, Sky and other globally successful businesses.
Eleanor Mills is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Noon, a new platform for women in midlife. Her writing appears regularly in the Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Mail etc and she often pops up on Radio 4, BBC London and LBC. Her publications include Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs, 100 Years of the Best Journalism by women. A life-long hack, Mills was Chair, Women in Journalism UK 2014-2021, Editorial Director of The Sunday Times and award-winning Editor of The Sunday Times Magazine as well as an interviewer, columnist and feature writer. She now campaigns to combat gendered ageism and to change the narrative around the later stages of women’s lives.
Fiona McDonnell is a senior executive drawing on 30 years in consumer products working with brands like Amazon, Kellogg’s, Kraft, Nike and McCormick. Recently as a Director at Amazon, Fiona combined commercial responsibility, with her role as Executive Sponsor for Diversity in the UK and chair of the Women in Innovation Advisory Committee. In addition to the day job, Fiona is an active mentor, and a volunteer and fundraiser for Working Options In Education and an Advisory Board Member for DIAL Global (Diverse and Inclusive Aspirational Leaders) and Arkeo Ltd a tech start up. In Oct 2021 she published her first book ‘Two Mirrors and a Cheetah: Think Differently, Own Your Career & Succeed by Being Yourself’, which is an easy reading development book for individuals and managers alike.
Fiona holds a Masters in Engineering from Cambridge University and gained her MBA from INSEAD. She was voted Diversity Leader of the year at the 2019 Tech Leaders Awards.
Important alongside her work is the time she spends with her husband and 2 boys (8 & 11 yrs.), staying healthy with tennis, yoga and keeping a sense of humour.
About Dorothy Cook
“My name is Dorothy Cook and I am 64 years of age. I am the youngest of 10 children and was born in Liverpool. I now live in Bristol and currently I am a full-time Carer for my husband Melvin. Melvin was diagnosed with a rare brain disease called Ataxia which developed around about 12 years ago. Melvin is currently 75 years of age. It was confirmed as him having late onset Ataxia and it is progressive. There is no cure. Melvin and I met when I was a teenager 48 years ago. We both come from a very small village in the Pennies. We have 1 son and 3 grandchildren. We moved to Bristol in 1980 and we both had interesting and varied careers. I started my career as a PA and then I progressed to working in television for 12 years. Melvin was a specialized Electrical Engineer. I then left television and trained in Human Resources. I then qualified as an Occupational Psychologist and ran my own Consultancy business for 27 years. I gave up my business 3 years ago to take care of Melvin full-time. Melvin and I had a wonderful life together. We were active, loved dancing and travelling. All of this came to a very sudden stop when he became ill. We had such plans as to what we were going to do when he retired. His illness has taken its toll on all aspects of our life and relationships. Being a Carer is hard. There is no respite from it but Carers do it out of love and devotion to their loved ones.”
