Changing People was established in 2003, by Jane C Woods, an internationally recognised authority women’s personal development.
Jane specialises in helping businesses manage change with confidence while developing more women through the management pipeline. More women choose to enter senior posts, and ultimately (hopefully) onto boards.
She has a particular focus on picking women up at the early stages of the management pipeline, thus encouraging them to benefit from training and development opportunities offered within in the organisation.
For several years Changing People licenced trainers across the globe to deliver the one day personal development course for women, RenewYou. At one point there were over 80 licensed trainers delivering RenewYou internationally. Covid meant that changed and now Jane licenses only UK based in-house trainers.
I’m Jane C Woods and I started Changing People in 2003. I’ve loved it. Changing career in my late forties was absolutely the right decision for me. I’ve had the privilege of living my passion – enabling women to achieve all that they are capable of and challenging gender inequality. Women’s personal development, seeing gender equality across the board, has been my raison d’etre.
A significant factor in that has been my creation of RenewYou, the one day programme which transforms women’s lives and helps business create a talent pool of motivated women. It’s the achievement in my second career that I’m most proud of. It’s been delivered to women across the world and I still get messages telling me about the positive impact it’s had. More on that here.
I was invited to join the RSA in 2021 ‘in recognition of your leadership as a woman in business and the work of your consultancy to train and empower a global network of women business leaders’ and am now a fellow.
Life changes for us all, and in common with so many women I now balance caring duties with my passion for women’s personal development. However, after decades of helping women be the best version of themselves, I can’t give it up entirely.I still write the blog, and coach on line but I travel far less. I still licence in house trainers in RenewYou and deliver it within the UK. And I have a new challenge, combatting femageism!
After my first degree in Wales, I began my working life as a social worker in Bermondsey, London, (which wasn’t posh and gentrified like it is now). I ended up in the West Country, a far cry from the very working class Medway Towns where I grew up. I took a two year post grad course at Bath University when my first child was one year old. I’ve worked in psychiatry, general hospitals, child care, with offenders in prisons and in the community and began my group work training in the probation service
Over time I moved into management roles but I felt I’d become so removed from my original calling, which was, quite simply, to help people. I wasn’t happy. I changed careers in my late forties. I just knew I had to do something different; it never occurred to me that I might be too old to make such a change. I had great support and encouragement from my friends and family. Work colleagues thought I was mad. ‘What about your pension?’ was the frequent refrain. Well, I finally got to the point when the lure of a pension was far less appealing than living a life true to myself. I chose to follow my dream.
I was 48 (and three quarters) and both scared and hugely excited. I can honestly tell you I have never looked back. I’ve had a wobble or two, but for me, running my own business has been amazing.
I blog about once a week on my passion – women thriving in the world of work. I am a huge advocate of gender equality in the workplace (and the world at large.)
Sign up to the newsletter and you’ll see a post in your in-box about whenever I get around to writing one… (Ahem). My goal is to give you interesting, informative, useful, and above all inspiring bite size nuggets.
As a semi retired WOW (Wise Old Women) I now only accept speaking engagements locally (Bath area) and for peop[e and organsations that touch my heart. That’s usually charities and the NHS, but you can try me.
Comments About Jane
“Your talk pulled one of our largest audiences.” Environment Agency
“I thought it was brilliant! Thanks so much for organising it!!! I have already signed up to the website.”
“I thought {Jane} was very easy and very interesting to listen to.”
“Very good talk. Well done. Really appreciated that. What a great find.”
“Top show! Really useful and interesting, plus well delivered too.”
“I found it really interesting and also really clear and easy to hear, so it’s a great example of running national events.”
“You were such a hit we’d like to see some more” WomenMeanBiz
“Jane was a keynote conference speaker for Business Inspired. She was a delight to work with, engaging, very creative and an inspiration to our delegates.” Business Inspired
I wanted to change the world. I wanted to make it fairer and better. Actually, I still want to change the world and now I’m relying on the collective power of women to help me. My first love, work wise, was social work. (My first love nonwork wise, was Elvis Presley but that’s another story).
After leaving University with a degree in Social History & Politics (and I confess I wasn’t at all academic. I couldn’t wait to actually get started on living) we moved to London. I was a trainee social worker with London Boroughs, based in Bermondsey.
I’d grown up in a very working class neighbourhood in North Kent. My dad, a Scot, was a scaffolder and my Mum worked as a dinner lady. I had ended up at a selective school (I passed something called the 11 plus) which opened up my horizons and made university a reality. In school I did reasonably well and I discovered a love for singing and acting…which is probably why I love talking to groups today.
I thought my background would give me a real edge when I began social work. I was wrong. Social work is both beset with bureaucracy and full of really good well intentioned people. It’s hard to make real lasting change with few resources. I was swiftly disabused of my aim to change the world via social work.
A few years after starting as a social worker we moved to Bath in the West Country of the UK. I had our first child and when she was 9 months old I went to Bath University to do a 2 year post graduate course in social work.
I’ve been fortunate enough to work in all areas of social work. This has been invaluable in my second career. I’ve worked in mainstream hospitals, child abuse teams, prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and management with relevant training courses. My last ‘proper job’ was as the lead for integrating health & social services and for a while I was ‘Queen of the Bed Blockers’. Also known as delayed transfers of care, i.e. people who didn’t need acute hospital care but who hadn’t gone home. It was a very political role. It did equip me very well for what I do now, working with businesses who want to introduce more women into their management pipeline and coaching senior women. I understand why people resist change and prefer to stick with what they know, even if they don’t much like what they know. Companies can have all the change programmes in the world but if they under estimate the emotional impact change has, they’ll be working doubly hard for half the result.
I ran various groups in all my jobs, and had some excellent training in group work dynamics through my work with offenders in the Probation Service, and in counselling/coaching within the psychiatric services. I took management qualifications and progressed. In all honesty, more by responding to opportunities, i.e. being asked, than by any clear career plan. That is not a recommendation, by the way, I think planning is crucial if we are to avoid some of the common pitfalls career women face. It wasn’t until I got to my 40s, when my children were pretty self sufficient, that I really began to think What do I actually want from life? I figured it out and went for it, as you have seen.
If you’d like to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you…
