As women gather across the globe to celebrate all that is female on International Women’s Day, we have taken a look at some of the most inspirational and influential women who help make a difference in Burton and South Derbyshire.

Here are just some of our community’s female faces that deserved to be honoured for their contribution to female empowerment.

Holly Murdoch

Holly is the general manager of St George’s Park, the home of England’s 28 national teams. She took up her role in November 2015 and has further developed the venue as a centre of excellence and hub for football in this country.

Holly Murdoch is the general manager at St George's Park

During her time in charge at the £105 million centre, Holly has overseen increasing visitor numbers and is heading up a masterplan for the site which will see it expand over the coming years. Holly ensures the site, which celebrated its fifth anniversary in October last year, is run as efficiently as possible while also enabling the technical team to have all the facilities required to deliver their strategic plan.

Over the past few years, Holly and the team at St George’s Park have focused on making the venue a destination that caters for elite sportspeople from across the world but also to the wider football community and businesses.

Jyoti Shah

Jyoti Shah, consultant urological surgeon at Burton’s Queen’s Hospital, has been running the prostate cancer screening

The Macmillan consultant urological surgeon is just one of two female surgeons at Burton’s Queen’s Hospital. As well as juggling a busy career, Jyoti has helped saved many lives with her campaign ‘Inspire Health – Fighting Prostate Cancer’ which she set up with advanced nurse practitioner Sarah Minns. The campaign has seen hundreds of men in the community educated on and tested for prostate cancer and Jyoti and Sarah appeared on BBC’s One Show to raise awareness of their project.

Tracey Hardie

Tracey Hardie is the chief executive of SARAC , the sexual abuse and rape advice centre, in Burton. Before working at the centre Tracey managed therapeutic and emotional support services for clients who were dealing with a diagnosis of cancer and were undergoing sometimes extremely gruelling cancer treatments.

Tracey Hardie, chief executive of Sarac, has praised the Coronation Street grooming storyline

Now, she works as part of a team who offer free, independent and one-to-one emotional support, information and advice to clients to help facilitate their recovery and encourage personal growth.

Noreen Oliver

As the founder of the Burton Addiction Centre, Noreen Oliver, has used her voice to help many.

Noreen has battled her own addiction to alcohol in the past

The 57-year-old has conquered her own battles with alcoholism which left her on her deathbed, and now acts as a spokesman helping addicts in the town turn their lives around.

Noreen was so passionate about the need for additional help that she put her house up as collateral, but her success has seen her save many lives.

Heather Wheeler

South Derbyshire MP Heather Wheeler has been representing the views of members of her community in parliament for many years and has recently been appointed Minister for Housing and Homelessness.

MP Heather Wheeler
South Derbyshire MP Heather Wheeler

She is a regular at events in the county and has shown her support for many policies including an opt out organ donation system and further plans to tackle homelessness.

Lesley Smith

Lesley Smith - Curator at Tutbury Castle.

Lesley Smith, 61, is a feminist historian who breathed life into Tutbury Castle by performing as historic women such as Boudicca, Anne Boleyn and Margaret Thatcher. Despite bravely battling cancer and becoming widowed in the last few years, Lesley has created a massive success story from Tutbury Castle and is a regular on TV shows including Most Haunted.

Fleur Robinson

Fleur Robinson is one of the biggest faces of Burton Albion Football Club and sits on the board of the Football Association Council but Fleur Robinson is also a loving mother and a champion of the younger generation.

Fleur Robinson Burton Albion.
Fleur Robinson is the commercial director at Burton Albion Football Club

While her role at the club is commercial director, Fleur is passionate about using her position to empower other young people to be successful in business and sport.

Helen Scott-South

Helen Scott-South is the chief executive of Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

She has been part of the NHS for 40 years and joined the Burton trust, which oversees Queen’s Hospital, in Burton, in March 2016.

Helen spent five years working at Derby Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust as the chief operating officer and later became the interim chief executive.

Helen Scott-South will retire should the merger go ahead as planned
Helen Scott-South is the chief executive of Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Before that, she was the director of operations at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and also served as a board director at three other large hospitals.

Kate Bateman

At the start of September 2015, Inspector Kate Bateman joined the South Derbyshire police force working out of Swadlincote Police Station.

She replaced Nigel Lidsey, and the married mum-of-two is busy keep criminals in check.

Inspector Bateman joined the police force back in 1990 and has worked in several different areas of Derbyshire.

She has spent time working as a beat officer in Mickleover and as a sergeant in Derby East before being promoted to inspector back in May 2014.

Then she took on her role based at Swadlincote Police Station.

What is International Women's Day?

International Women's Day, which is held on March 8, is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

International Women's Day (IWD) has been observed since the early 1900's - a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. International Women's Day is a collective day of global celebration and a call for gender parity. No one government, NGO, charity, corporation, academic institution, women's network or media hub is solely responsible for International Women's Day.

"The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights," says world-renowned feminist, journalist and social and political activist Gloria Steinem.

Thus International Women's Day is all about unity, celebration, reflection, advocacy and action - whatever that looks like globally at a local level. But one thing is for sure, International Women's Day has been occurring for well over a century - and continues to grow from strength to strength.