GORDON GILL


CHAIR, PERMITS FOUNDATION


GLOBAL HR LEADERSHIP & THE TRANSFORMATION OF


DUAL-CAREER MOBILITY With a career spanning multiple continents and industries, forging alliances and working with trade unions and governments, Gill Gordon’s journey has been one of collaboration, negotiation and teamwork. From Paris to Berlin to the United States, each experience has shaped her leadership approach and fuelled her passion for driving change.


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ill spent most of her career with Schlumberger (now SLB) and was HR Director UK from September 2014 until her retirement October 2020. Since 2020 she has continued


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to be chair of the Permits Foundation, a role she first took on in 2007, a not-for-profit organisation established to persuade Governments to remove work permit barriers for the partners of highly skilled mobile employees in order to facilitate global dual careers. Over the years, she has played a pivotal role in


expanding best practices for dual career couples across more than 40 countries via the work of the Permits Foundation. However, she acknowledges that hard-won agreements need to be defended when new political leaders take over. The hard work has paid off – twenty plus years ago at Schlumberger International, dual career couples were the exception, but today there are thousands, and the number is rising rapidly across most international organisations.


A CURIOSITY TO SEE THE WORLD Gill grew up in Bangor, Northern Ireland, about 12 miles outside Belfast. From an early age, she had a restless curiosity about the world beyond. “My parents would probably tell you that I had a habit of wandering off as a very young child – there were a


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couple of "escapes" that required bringing me back home, once by the police!” she explains. “A close family friend, who travelled extensively (which was unusual at the time), used to return from her trips with tiny decorative bottles for the cocktail cabinet. I was completely fascinated by the idea of seeing different places.” Another major influence was growing up during


the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the limitations that placed on people. That played a large part in Gill’s decision to move abroad to study and work. “Languages were my strongest


subject, and they


offered an obvious gateway to travel. At 16, I took my first real trip abroad – what was meant to be a short youth- hostelling trip to Normandy with a cousin. We ended up hitchhiking around France and Germany for two months instead. My poor mother was beside herself. I would send postcards and occasionally phone from a phone box, but she later admitted that she seriously considered hiring a helicopter to come and find me,” Gill says. That trip confirmed Gill’s love for exploring different


cultures. She went on to study modern languages, specifically French and German at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, with a focus on interpreting and translation. As part of the programme, she spent six months in Heidelberg and six months in Geneva. Gill found she loved it, and worked every summer in France, Germany,


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