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Inspiring Leader: Beverly Wilks with Bacon & Heels
What are you most passionate about?
This is a great question as I am passionate about many things. First and foremost I’m very much passionate about technology, learning new things and strengthening the financial literacy, skills & confidence of women.
Who is your greatest role model?
100% my parents. They have provided me with invaluable guidance, instilled in me a strong work ethic, encouraged me to have a purpose-driven career and live life to its fullest potential.
What is your greatest accomplishment in your career trajectory?
I am having a great career, over the past 15 years I have had the opportunity to work at forward thinking technology organizations; I had the opportunity to work in the UK and now I am working at the leading physical security software company where I am developing and executing marketing programs that are helping organizations to keep people, cities and businesses safe.
What advice would you give to women who are building their careers?
When it comes to your career, there is no straight line. We may get promoted, make a lateral move or stay for a while in a current role. The most important thing for anyone in their careers is to truly enjoy what they are doing.
Another piece of advice I would give women is to trust themselves and take more risks.
My third piece of advice is to stay curious, try new things, work smart and hard. It’s okay to make mistakes because this is how we learn. It’s also ok to change your mind, to change course. Every experience that you have in and out of work allows you to bring your own unique perspective to your career.
What do you think is the biggest challenge for the generation of women behind you?
Willian Edwards Deming was an America engineer, statistician, professor who famously said “In God we trust, all others must bring data.” We are in a data dominant era and with so much information at our fingertips data should act as the foundation for the decision making process. By learning how to ingest and leverage this data the future generation can ensure that they are effectively using this information so that businesses and organizations can make informed decisions.
Please tell us more about you and your blog "Bacon & Heels" and how people can connect with you.
Over the at few years I have often heard women tell me that ‘managing money is boring’ or “I don’t know where my money goes’. These comments really upset me as I believe that financial literacy is a life skill that we all need to learn, and master.
The blog covers a variety of topics from saving, investing, budgeting and taxes – and I try to make every post entertaining and insightful.
The site has several tools, stories and a variety of financial calculators. The calculators were developed so that people can enter a few digits and as an example, easily build a spending plan (the word budget is too restrictive!), see how they can build an emergency fund and see how much they need to save to retire comfortably.
The goal of the blog and Instagram page is to encourage women to take control of their futures by effectively managing their money by saving, investing and building their financial confidence.
The blog can be found at www.baconheels.com and you can follow Bacon & Heels on Instagram at @Bacon_and_Heels
We look forward to sharing Beverly's blog posts and having her contribute to upcoming webinars and forums about Financial Literacy.