The new Lord Mayor of London wants to ‘raise the profile of women’ in business during her year in office.

Fiona Woolf made this pledge after officially taking up her role as Lord Mayor of the City of London on 8 November.

According to her CV, Woolf, a past President of the Law Society of England and Wales, has over 20 years experience in dealing with regulation, market design, implementation and major projects in the electricity industry.

Most recently, she worked with the World Bank on regional transmission line projects to enable post-conflict countries, such as Liberia and Sierra Leone, to import electricity.

Her CBE is ‘for her contribution to the UK knowledge economy and invisible earnings’.

She is the second woman to be appointed as Lord Mayor in the 800-odd years of the office’s existence.

Woolf told the Huffington Post: “Being the second woman in the role is exciting for me – a lot of emphasis is put on the first woman in a position (a role that has been mine on several occasions), but being the second shows the normalisation of female leadership that has taken place in the 30 years since Mary Donaldson become the first female Lord Mayor in 1983.”

Woolf’s key theme for the year is ‘The Energy to Transform Lives’ and incorporates the debates and forums on Tomorrow’s City and Harnessing Talent: The Power of Diversity.

She said: “I hope that throughout my mayoral year, I am able to raise the profile of women in business to better enable younger women to fulfil their ambitions and to aim high. One of the themes I’m going to be pushing heavily throughout my mayoralty is the importance of capturing the benefits of diversity and difference in the City’s talent pool.”

Woolf’s charity appeal, ‘The Energy to Transform Lives’, aims to give the four chosen charities – Beating Bowel Cancer, Princess Alice Hospice, Raleigh International and Working Chance – a chance to reach new audiences. All four were selected on the basis of her experience of working on community-based projects that are scalable and can be replicated at low cost.

Working Chance, is a London-based organisation set up to find jobs for female ex-offenders.

Her mandate says: “This enables these women and their children to cross the social divide from exclusion to contribution. The Lord Mayor’s Appeal aims to triple the number of women trained and supported into work, and to increase the number of City employers with whom the charity can work.”

The Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the head of the City of London Corporation, and the main role is to support City businesses and be an overseas ambassador, but there are also ceremonial responsibilities.

Woolf will give more than 800 speeches and travel to around 22 countries during her year in office which began  with the Lord Mayor’s parade on 9 November and the Prime Minister’s speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on 14 November.