‘I wouldn’t mess with them,’ said Andy Burnham during his Makerfield victory speech after winning what is definitely the most important by-election of the year, if not the decade. And the ‘them’ he credits for his win? ‘A band of strong Northern power women’ driven by the force that is Simone Roche MBE, a 5ft whirlwind from Liverpool who is CEO & founder of We Are PoWEr and the Northern PoWEr Women Awards. You may not have heard of her previously, but while this is undoubtedly Andy Burnham’s moment, it may very well be Simone’s, too.

‘My Google Alerts went absolutely mad when Andy used the phrase “Northern power women,”’ she says. Why did he say he wouldn’t mess with them? ‘Because he’s been in the room,’ she laughs. ‘Andy has stood on our stage, he’s met the community and he knows that Northern Power Women don’t just talk about change – they make it happen. These are women who run businesses, lead communities, campaign, innovate and support one another without being asked. I think when he said it, he meant it as the highest compliment. It’s that combination of grit, generosity and absolute refusal to accept the status quo. You’d be unwise to underestimate them. He knows that.’

We are talking via Zoom – me in the Good Housekeeping offices, Simone from Spain, where she is meant to be on holiday, but is instead phoning me from a café, suitcases at her feet, still buzzing about the Burnham name check. Later, it transpires it was also her birthday. ‘I was very grateful he used it. And actually, if my world has always been about giving a platform and amplifying, then hell yes, I’m gonna jump on it.’

In 2024, the Women of the North report found that northern women earn significantly less than women elsewhere in England (collectively losing an estimated £132 million every week compared with women in the rest of England) and also have a shorter healthy life expectancy. Last year, the Gender Equality Index UK – the first tool to measure and map gender inequalities across all 372 local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – concluded that gender and geography intersect to shape opportunities across the country. In other words: we know the North is underrepresented in the UK’s centres of power – and that women are, too. But being a Northern woman? That’s a double disadvantage. One that Simone has spent a decade determinedly demolishing.

Launched in 2015 as a one-off event (with ‘no money, I just did it’), We Are PoWEr has now grown to encompass a community interest company that supports mentoring, networking, skills development, and career progression to improve social mobility. There are podcasts and webinars in which leaders, entrepreneurs and experts discussing leadership, careers, diversity, inclusion, entrepreneurship and workplace culture. And the flagship event – the annual Northern PoWEr Women Awards, recognising individuals and organisations driving positive change and the largest celebration of gender equality in Europe.

Their community now span over 120,000 people, this year’s awards garnered 1,800 award nominations and when they celebrated their 10th anniversary in March, Andy Burnham was a guest speaker.

How has it grown so vast, seemingly against the odds? ‘Northern women have a can-do spirit,’ says Simone. ‘There’s a friendliness, a generosity and a real Northern grit that’s really hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it. There’s a willingness to help one another.’

As a group, she stresses, they are completely apolitical: ‘we don’t exist to support politicians; we exist to support positive change in the gender equality space. Still, it’s not hard to see the appeal for a politician like Andy Burnham, who attended the very first awards in 2016, the year before his election as Mayor of Greater Manchester and publicly backed the recommendations in their 2020 report Levelling Up By Powering On.

The network is packed with business leaders, campaigners, entrepreneurs, teachers and innovators who traditionally haven’t had a direct line to Westminster. ‘I think what Northern PoWEr Women gives Andy is access to people who’ll tell him the truth,’ says Simone. ‘They’re no-nonsense, they’ll give him tough love if he needs it, but they’ll also help find solutions… if he’s trying to solve a problem, he doesn’t have to rely on the usual voices. He can speak to people who are actually doing the work on the ground.’

As for Simone herself, a recent Instagram post provides some clues as to the scale of her drive, as well as its source. Underneath an image of her standing next to Burnham runs the caption: ‘For over a decade, Northern PoWEr Women Awards [and] We Are PoWEr have been building the community that belongs in every room where the big decisions get made. 120,000 strong. Resilient. Collaborative. Fearless. Rooted in the North.

‘The talent is here,’ she continues. ‘The voices are here. The ambition is here… what makes a #NorthernPowerWoman? What’s the trait that means you should always have a seat at the table? The quality that means you should never, ever be messed with? We’re building the list. And, Andy, take note – which I know you always do.’

Those traits, likely always within her, took a while to show themselves. ‘I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do when I left school,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t particularly academic. What I did know was that I wanted adventure.’ So after A-levels, (‘which I failed spectacularly – that and my driving test in one week’) she joined the Navy.

‘Joining the Royal Navy changed my life. It became my university. I stayed for eight years and absolutely loved it. Looking back, that’s where I learned everything about community, resilience and believing in people.’ It taught me that positive action and a positive attitude can change things.

One day: ‘My boss pulled me aside and said, “Simone, I think you should become an officer.” I remember thinking, “They don’t let short Northerners do that!” I couldn’t see anyone who looked like me in those roles, but he was so persistent. He didn’t just say, “Go for it.” He said, “Right, I'm going to help you. I’m going to introduce you to people. I’m going to support you.”

‘Eighteen months later, when I passed out as an officer, he was there with his wife alongside my family.’

Women had only just been allowed to serve at sea, making Simone a newly fledged member of a tiny minority. But she says: ‘I honestly never felt I was treated differently because I was a woman. I did, however, feel different because I was Northern. You’ve got to remember this was a time when everyone on television spoke with perfect Queen’s English. You didn’t have people like Steph McGovern proudly keeping their accents. Being Northern stood out far more than being female ever did.’

After the navy, she took roles in events and sales management before joining People 1st, a workforce development charity for skills in the visitor economy. ‘That’s where I accidentally fell into the gender equality space,’ she says.

She set up mentoring schemes for women and soon other business leaders were asking her for help setting up their own. In 2012, she started a series of TEDxWhitehallWomen events with former Women in Football board member Ruth Shaw OBE (‘She asked me if I’d like to get involved and I said “I’d love to” but had to go away and Ask Jeeves, because I didn’t know what the hell it was!’). And when, in 2014, the government launched the International Festival for Business in Liverpool, Simone spotted her chance.

She asked the organisers for a seat at the table and she got one, albeit a very small one – a slot in the schedule for ‘a little fringe event’ called Women Inspiring the Economy. In the end, ‘We had 250 people standing shoulder to shoulder,’ Simone remembers. ‘I brought in brilliant people from across the UK, but I also wanted local voices. I didn’t want people coming up from London telling the North how to do gender equality. I wanted people from the North to see themselves reflected on that stage.’

That day: ‘People were collaborating, mentoring one another and creating opportunities together. I still don’t know half the stories that came out of that day – and I love that. You can’t personally make every introduction, but you can create the environment where those introductions happen. If you get the energy right, people create the magic themselves.’

From that event, Northern PoWEr Women was created and soon evolved into We Are PoWEr. The Awards followed the very next year, with Simone doing what she does best – calling in favours, networking and enlisting help and support: ‘For the first event, I wanted politicians in the room and I got them – Luciana Berger from Labour, Esther McVey, and Jo Swinson…’ She is unwilling to take all the credit, though: ‘Of course, there are brilliant women everywhere in the country, but I do think Northerners have this instinct that, if something isn’t happening for us, we don’t just complain about it – we roll our sleeves up and work out what we can do.

‘There’s a real Northern grit. And there’s a willingness to help one another. I think what Andy Burnham will gain from these amazing Northern power women is far more reach to get the right people at his tables. He doesn’t have to go for what has been done before.’

A lot needs to change, should he end up in Number 10, she suggests. ‘The single biggest thing is making sure the voices doing the work on the ground are genuinely in the room when decisions are made – not consulted afterwards, not brought in to validate what’s already been decided. Regional investment, skills, employment, social mobility – these are not abstract policy issues for Northern women, they are lived daily reality. We need funding that reflects that and we need representation at every table that matters. The talent and the solutions already exist in the North. The job now is to resource them properly.’

But at least he won’t have to do it alone: ‘If he has got a problem, he can phone the A-team,’ she says. ‘Northern PoWEr Women. And also, we’re both Evertonians, so we’re very happy to have that in common.’