Jane Hartley

I was born in Bath, leaving to attend university in Swansea after which I returned home and eventually found myself working for the Ministry of Defence where I trained as a Management Accountant and Programme Manager.

Completely unintentionally, I spent the whole of my career working for the MoD all over the UK, partly because it offered me a variety of opportunities: I did everything from explosives safety, HR, skills development, magazine editing, accountancy and leading strategic transformation programmes. My final few years were largely spent leading a multi-million pound finance Shared Service Centre in Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester.

However, by 2019 I had largely been working away from home for several years. I was exhausted and felt I needed to re-set my work-life balance, so I decided to take early retirement in March 2020. The plan was to get married in June, see much more of the family and spend a lot of time travelling but, of course, COVID-19 arrived and our plans were thrown up in the air. Although I’m happy to say that after being together for 26 years we did manage to get married in August.

One of the other things I wanted to do in my retirement was to become involved in the third sector in some way and while talking to my friend Claire Wynne-Hughes about my plans for the future she mentioned Bath Women’s Fund.

I am fortunate that I have a good education, health and financial independence, but during my career I worked with women who were far less fortunate than I am and their stories of abuse, poverty and lack of opportunities really impacted me. On the flip side, I have also seen what support and empowerment can do to help women improve their lives and reach their potential, so I jumped at the chance to join Bath Women’s Fund as a way to give something back to the local community.

I haven’t completely stopped working as I’m investigating bullying and harassment complaints for the Ministry of Defence, training to be a mentor and I’m looking for trustee or Non-Executive Director opportunities as a way to continue to support the not-for-profit sector. However, despite all of this I have definitely got my life back in balance and I’m happier and less stressed than I’ve been for a long time.

Unfortunately, given the pandemic, all Bath Women’s Fund meetings since I joined have been virtual, but I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone face to face some time in 2021. It’s brilliant to have met a new group of women who have such an inspiring purpose!