See Why This Mum Quit Her £2.5million Per Annum Executive Job
McGregor-Smith, 53, CEO of Mitie Group PLC, has quit her £2.5million per year job to spend more time at home after one of her children told her, ‘I want my mum back.’
McGregor has reportedly spent nine years juggling her role as chief executive of security and cleaning staff supplier, Mitie, with raising her two children.
However, yesterday, the Baroness who is Britain’s first Asian boss of a top FTSE 250 company, announced plans to step down, saying this was partly influenced by the comments from her children.
Her resignation will reignite the debate over the challenges facing mothers struggling to balance work and home life, Daily Mail reports.
The top executive, who was ennobled in the 2015 dissolution honors list, said:
‘I always thought ten years would be long enough in the role. When I started my children were aged eight and ten and now one is at University and the other doing A-levels.
We talked to the children about me leaving the job last year and both said they want more time with me. Being a mum of two young people was always something I had to juggle with work. It’s been really tough.’
When she took the top job at Mitie in 2007, her husband Graham, 54, stepped back from his job at a private equity to spend more time at home. He also retrained as a baritone opera singer.
She continued:
‘I was still a really hands-on mum. Typically I would get up by 6am, and the big thing was being with [the children] in the morning and taking them to school and doing lift shares with other mums.’
She usually made it home by early evening and both parents cooked the evening meal together.Now, she feels the need to succumb to her children’s wish to spend more time with her.
She had previously said about juggling work with family:
‘You need to work with people who understand you have a family and that you are a mother first and foremost. To make it work in top jobs, women need a lot of support to allow them to do it alongside having a family.’
The executive will step down by the end of the year.
Photo credit: Ed Robinson/OneRedEye
Family comes first in everything, but that money too much oh.
Not easy quitting a well paid job, if for the family good, God will always provide
Family comes first but she’s working for the kids to have the best. Well she’s in a sane society so she might not feel it much. With that kind money here in naija, nobody go try am looooool.
The children are already grown na. Who will she spend time with? She should have done this when they were much younger
wow…….its worth it
Abeg she has tried thus far, God bless her, it’s not easy