A selection of Cardiff’s inspirational women

These Cardiff born, bred, and educated women are seamlessly changing their professional landscape.

Here’s to them.

Athletes

Tanni Grey-Thompson

Cardiff born Tanni Grey-Thompson is a gold medalist paralympian. Her first Paralympics were in 1988 where she won a bronze medal in the 400m. She has since go on to win 11 gold medals and 4 silver, at the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Paralympic games.

Tanni has broken 30 World Records on the track and is the first woman to break the 60 second barrier for 400m.

Tanni’s biography states that she ‘was determined to find out for herself what she could and couldn’t do’. It was in secondary school she discovered her love of sport and at 13 realised that Wheelchair Racing was for her, and at 17 became part of the British Wheelchair Racing Squad.

Bloggers

Laura SideStreet

Award winning blogger, Laura is an expat living in Cardiff. Her blog ‘Side Street Style‘ has been featured in Cardiff Life magazine, Pastik Magazine, and had a video segment in TKMaxx Cardiff Street Style.

Her blog features posts on lifestyle, interiors, and travel and has made Laura a finalist for awards such as MADS Blog Award, Candis magazine Blog Award, and Wales Blog Awards. With her success in Britmums BIBS award in 2015.

AnneMarie Cunningham

Cardiff University’s clinical lecturer AnneMarie has 16,000 followers on Twitter and promotes ‘social justice’ and ‘sustainable healthcare’. She believes ‘that many minds make light work’ and is all for the expansions of medical education on her blog ‘Wishful Thinking in Medical Education‘.

Inspired by the continuing growth of medical education, her social media journey in 2008 and since she has built a strong network of collegues in the Public Health sector.

Nikki Rees

A like many internet bloggers, Nikki Rees a mum of two is paving the way for fitness in the home with her blog ‘Actively Rees‘. On Instagram she has 137,000 followers and has follow Kayla Itnesis BBG workout routine for the last 64 weeks!

She promotes self love and confidence in her picture bios: ‘My emotions do not hinge on what size dress I can fit into. My self worth isn’t judged by the less than balanced food choices I mad. And I’m not deciding whether I’m beautiful based on the number on the weighing scales.’

Cardiff University Alumni and Students

Vicky Chandler

In 2014 Vicky Chandler successfully led a campaign to get a Dapper Laughs appearance cancelled at Cardiff University off of a 700-signature campaign. The Student Union ran a campus-wide poll that emailed all 30,000 students the question “Do you think he should be banned?” and 89 per cent of the respondents agreed he should.

Since Vicky has appeared on Channel 4 news and has internships at major magazines such as Grazia UK and Stylist Magazine. She has also worked at the Metro, DARE Magazine, and is currently a digital journalist at Good Housekeeping. And still finds time to attend Revlon UK’s masquerade ball.

Sophie Timbers

The 2016-2017 Cardiff University Student President Sophie Timbers graduated with a 1st class BA in English Language and Communication. Sophie was captain of Cardiff Dancesport’s first team and made finals including the Ballroom Advanced final at the University Nationals, the UK Open and the Welsh Open.

Sophie has completed the Cardiff Award and as last year’s VP Education had many successes which included; the opening of the ASSL to 25hours, the instillation of compulsory exam feedback, recruiting over one thousand Student Academic Reps, which is a new student’s union record.

Members of Parliament

Cheryl Gillan

Born in Cardiff’s Llandaf, Conservative MP for Chesham and Amersham, Cheryl Gillan, is just one of the 191 female Members of Parliament elected in 2015.

Cheryl became the youngest female Conservative MP in 1992 and has since held several international offices with the Common Wealth Parliamentary Association, the NATO Parlimentary Assembly and most recently the Council of Europe.

Journalists

Elena Cresci

https://instagram.com/p/BFxD9Gfh5VN

Elena Cresci is a community co-ordinator for news at theguardian.com. Starting as a trainee journalist at Cardiff University she now helps to encourage user engagement with the news on the site and around the web.

Her personality spans further than the news as she runs a fashion blog ‘Seamless‘ which is dedicated to new trends and her own designs. It seems she’s seemlessly got her life under wraps.

Claire Summers

Gaining a post-graduate degree in Journalism from the University of Cardiff, Claire Summers is one of the youngest members of the BBC Wales Today team, reporting on national news for Wales.

One of her most prolific reports was on the 100 year Remembrance Day of World War I as experiences life as a Land Girl during the period.

TV Personalities

Beca Lyne-Pirkis

Beca Lyne-Pirkis from Penylan in Cardiff was a semi-finalist on The Great British Bake Off in 2013. Brought up with a love of baking she turned her passion into her career.

In 2014 she started her own television programme, Becws, which showed how a mum of two young children and a military wife can flare her baking with for all the fashionable foodies.

Charlotte Church

Born in Cardiff, Charlotte Church rose to fame at a young age. She has won a Classical BRIT Award, Young Star Award and received an award from the Institute of Public Relations at the age of 14.

Recently she has become a political commentator and has appeared on Question Time. She was also bombarded with offensive Tweets following her comment on Nigel Farage’s Parliamentary exit after Brexit, but her clapback was stellar.