How our members are celebrating International Women’s Day

This year, Aegon are running a programme for all their global business units. Employees will be able to access 12 live, inspiring online keynote speakers from 7am to 7pm CET.

It’s a live programme provided by the external company Leqture which everyone within Aegon around the world will have access to, with recordings available for the different time zones.

International Women's Day - March 8th 2024 (leqture.com)

There are a number of ways British Business Bank are celebrating IWD.

International Women’s Day-themed networking lunch on Monday 4 March 13:00

Our employee-resource group promoting an inclusive culture, Stronger Together and members of ExCo will join today’s networking lunch in both offices to celebrate the theme of #InspireInclusion. We’ll take some photos/videos at the lunch to share with everyone later in the week.

Parental Network meeting: “Working mothers and their allies” on Thursday 7 March 10:00 

The meeting will take place in person in both offices and on Teams. To join this informal and supportive meeting, please this form.

News article/blog/newsletter

You can expect a blog on Women in Banking and Finance cohorts and their experiences with the programme. Our Wellbeing Wednesday newsletter will be dedicated to IWD, and there will be a news article summarising the week on Friday, where we’ll share some book and podcast recommendations.

External events to highlight

• AllBright Step Forward Summit

On Friday, we are sponsoring a panel at the AllBright Step Forward Summit. AllBright is the world’s largest collective of women in business, enabling ambition in all forms. Our General Counsel and Company Secretary will be on the panel. We’ll share more about this event soon.

• AI UK 2024, The Alan Turing Institute

On Tuesday 19 March, our CEO will attend a panel focused on women and innovation at AI UK 2024. The conference will be an in-dept exploration of how data science and AI can be used to solve real-world challenges.

The Equal Workplace - In-person event

DLA Piper are kindly extending an invite to WIBF members to their IWD event - The Equal Workplace, on Wednesday 6 March.

We invite you to an evening with cultural anthropologist and bestselling novelist Tahmima Anam as she outlines the future of work – a place where excellence and equality go hand in hand.

This event is open to all our clients and contacts, male and female, and we really hope you can join us. Drinks and food will be served and other fun and thought-provoking activities will take place during the evening.

Agenda

17:30 – Registration and refreshments

18:00 – Tahmima’s talk

19:00 – Drinks, food and networking

Venue: DLA Piper, 1 St Peter's Square, Manchester, M2 3DE

To register, please click here

When registering, please insert details of your Company with (WIBF member) in brackets.

This year, for International Women’s Day, IG are looking to address some of the most significant barriers to moving that needle for equality in ALL workplaces.

IG are partnering with Harrington Starr and bringing: UnconventionALL: IWD through a different lens. Each of their guest speakers will be addressing different barriers to inclusion.

It is being held at Vintners Hall, EC4V 3BJ, on March 5th at 11am and you plus someone you think could and should be an ally is invited.

The entire event will be to change opinions, share lessons, and see things from a different vantage point – what is your lens?

The line-up of speakers includes:

Payal Jain, Commercial and Analytical Executive & Chair of Women in Data®

Nadia Edwards-Dashti, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer of Harrington Starr Group

Meri Williams, CTO of Pleo

Daniele Fiandaca, Founder of Token Man Consulting

Sign up for your free ticket here and save yourself a space.

You can watch their Promo video here:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7163518045590650881

LBG has got several internal events planned for this year’s IWD to demonstrate how they Inspire Inclusion.

• A Careers Week will run between 4^th – 8^th March which will cover various events around the opportunities internally as well as the tools that colleagues have to hand to be able to move and progress within their careers.

• LBG have launched an Inclusive Every Day Hub -they say-  “Through our people led focus groups we’ve learnt there’s still a view that inclusion is largely about minority issues - but we can all experience exclusion and so we all have a part to play in being more inclusive to ensure our business is a place we all love to work. That’s why we’ve launched Inclusive every day with materials and activities to help us all understand how we can be more inclusive in our everyday behaviours, language, and leadership.”

• Laura Needham, LBG’s Chief Internal Auditor, was appointed as Executive Ally for Gender in Nov’23. Here is a link to Laura’s profile on LinkedIn (2) Laura Needham | LinkedIn where you can see some announcements about her other (more external) appointments.

Mediobanca has planned a couple of activities targeting its female audience at both HQ and regional level.

Our colleagues in Milan will have the opportunity to join “The Self-esteem Gym”, a workshop on respect and empowerment run by Gabrielle Fellus, a Krav Maga instructor. Through targeted exercises that integrate theoretical and practical self-defence techniques, attendees will work to enhance the values of self-esteem, trust and respect.

Meanwhile, the female population of the London Branch will be attending a private guided tour of Yoko Ono – Music of the Mind (Trailblazer and an feminist icon Yoko Ono has always been vocal about women's rights. Through her art and public statements, she's consistently highlighted issues of gender inequality and sexism making powerful statements touching and inspiring people across generations and continents) at the Tate Modern followed by a drinks networking reception.

Via Moodys.com will lead with our report on board gender diversity’ from our ratings business, which is also in the form of a podcast.   Moody’s Analytics have focused on ‘narrowing the gender participation gap’.

Additionally on the platform, you will find a great video.

PIC have a dedicated PIC women’s’ chat and we posted in here as a teaser to start.

They have mailed out to a diverse group of senior female leaders, looking for volunteers to help us celebrate International Women’s Day to be part of a Q&A panel over lunchtime on Thursday 7 March

The panel of 4 – 6 woman, this will be moderated by Jane Hennequin and asking each panel member the following:

A short introduction and a summary of their career

Employees (open to all employees to join) to have the opportunity to speak to senior female leaders about the secrets to their success.

Example questions

What have been the highlights in your career to date?

What are some personal and professional challenges you have encountered?

If you had the chance to speak to your younger self, what advice would you give?

Photos will be taken and shared on our intranet with anecdotal feedback from participants, this will be similar to IMD later in the year.

We will be offering IWD coloured cakes to buy with the £ raised going to dedicated woman charities, these are TBC.  Also asking people to incorporate the IWD colours in what they are wearing too.