Welcome back to the Peer Suite Agenda, your weekly briefing on what matters for your career, network, and next move.

Inside This Edition:

• From the Peer Suite blog: a practical guide to getting started with AI as a woman in corporate, with a four-week plan to go from feeling behind to feeling capable
• On our radar: a founder podcast with Sara Blakely, a TED talk on confidence, five wellness habits, the retirement number to have in mind, and a summer reading list
• Opportunities: A free online AI programme from Founderz and Microsoft
• Events: Two events coming up, our Hyde Park Walk and Talk on 13th June and a Women's Networking Morning on 14th July

Getting Started With AI: A Curated Guide for Women in Corporate

Having a baseline level of AI literacy is quickly becoming expected, even when it sits outside your actual role or a role you are applying for. We all know we should be using AI more deliberately to streamline workflows, but between all the noise about setting up Claude co-work and figuring out what an .md file is, most of us end up reverting to using ChatGPT like Google and stopping there.

AI doesn't have to be complicated, and to help you navigate where to begin, this set of resources has been curated for non-technical professionals, covering foundational courses, how to get good at prompting, newsletters and communities to follow, and a handful of tools to have open while you work.

It finishes with a realistic four-week plan that takes you from feeling behind to feeling capable.

🎙️ FOR THE COMMUTE In Confessions of a Female Founder, Spanx founder, Sara Blakely talks through building a billion-pound brand with no business background and no outside funding for years. Her point about staying close to the problem you are solving rather than the advice everyone gives you is a good one, whether you are building something of your own or pushing an idea forward inside a big organisation.

🎤 CONFIDENCE FOLLOWS ACTION If you have ever held back from putting yourself forward because you did not feel ready, Kat Cole's TED talk on the "hot shot rule" is for you. She worked her way up from waitress to CEO, and she argues that confidence does not arrive before you act, it builds through the act itself. The hot shot rule is a simple habit of asking what a more capable version of you would do in your role right now, and then doing that thing.

🧘 THE BASICS, DONE WELL Most wellness advice aimed at busy women ends up adding more to your plate. Emergency physician Dr Leana Wen breaks down the five habits that actually move the needle, and none of them involve a new device or supplement. The one she is firmest on is sleep, which she describes as a biological necessity, the thing your body relies on to repair, regulate hormones, and manage energy.

💷 THE NUMBER NOBODY MENTIONS Most of us have a vague sense we should be saving more, without a figure to aim at. The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association sets out what different retirement lifestyles actually cost, and a comfortable retirement for a single person now runs to around £43,900 a year. Women tend to retire with smaller pots and live longer, so the gap matters more for us and is something to understand and prepare for. Express interest here for our next Wealth Panel on pensions.

📚 SUMMER READING Now the evenings are longer, this round-up of business books written by and for women is a good place to find your next park read, from Shonda Rhimes on saying yes to the things that scare you, to Jaclyn Johnson on building a business on your own terms.

AI Skills 4 Women Free Online Programme

Founderz and Microsoft run AI Skills 4 Women, a free, fully online programme available in 13 languages with no technical background required.

It covers AI fundamentals, practical applications, prompt engineering, and data analytics, and takes around three hours to complete, with an official Microsoft credential at the end. Over 57,000 women completed the last edition across 30 countries.

Now that summer is finally here (well, at least it was last week, so I am hopeful it will return soon!), I am excited to be hosting our next monthly Walk and Talk on 13th June.

There is something about walking side by side rather than sitting across a table that makes conversation easier, and I always come away having met someone new that I am glad I got to connect with.

If you have been meaning to come along to one, then I'd love to see you there!

Your friend,

Rebecca

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