On Tuesday 24th January, the College hosted the fifth Honours Lecture of this academic year. We were thrilled to be joined by GDST Trustee and Explorer, Masha Gordon. Masha started her career as a journalist for the Washington Post and later studied in the United States; gaining a BA in political science from the University of Wisconsin and a masters in law and diplomacy from Tufts University. Masha spent the next 16 years of her career working in finance. She spent 12 years at Goldman Sachs where she was a Managing Director in the Investment Management Division and most recently led the emerging markets portfolio management team at PIMCO. In October 2015, Masha embarked on a journey to set a women’s world record in Explorers Grand Slam, one of the toughest endurance challenges that features climbing highest peaks on every continent and skiing to the North and South Poles. On 11 June last year, she set a new record at 7 months and 19 days. She has also become the new Guinness Book of Records record holder of the Seven Summits Challenge. Masha is a founder of GRIT&ROCK, a charitable program aimed at raising mental endurance in teenage girls via a practice of outdoors. Masha’s inspirational talk focused on harnessing the power of mental endurance to attain seemingly stretch goals, team building and finessing judgment calls in risk-taking. Our Year 12 and 13 students were treated to photos and footage of her climbs on Kilimanjaro and Everest and her incredible journeys across ice to the North and South Poles.