Frances Malone started work at the age of 16 as an office junior, now she’s Qualis Group Finance manager.
Frances admits she was not academic and missed a lot of schooling, hence the desire to start work as soon as she could.
Within two years she was living the dream for a teenager, working in a big city company as part of the finance team.
Finance, particularly credit control, was her forte and she quickly rose through the ranks at various companies until she had her son in 2000.
“At the time I was working in the travel industry and my boss was Greek. He encouraged me to work a jobshare with my sister so that we could maintain our employment and look after our offspring.”
Rising higher up the ladder – in spite of being made redundant a couple of times – Frances was finally encouraged to apply for a temporary role in the finance team in 2020 – a year after Qualis was created in 2019.
That role turned into a permanent one and again she worked her way up to her current role.
“Throughout my career I have had senior managers who have encouraged me to achieve my goals and that’s how I now manage my team…all of them women!
“Only twice in my career have I worked for women financial directors, but senior colleagues have been pushed me forward and even fought for equal pay for me.
“I love to see women achieve and move on to greater things.
“Here at Qualis we have a number of women in the Executive and Senior Leadership teams who are really supportive to women employees in helping them achieve within the company.”