Our first event of the year, held at the fabulous Exeter Golf and Country Club, focussed on equality and diversity, specifically focussing on women in the workplace. These events are designed to offer business leaders and owners in and around Exeter, insights and inspiration to support the inclusivity within their own workplace.
We welcomed four fantastic speakers: Alexis Bowater OBE, Lindsay Lucas, Harriet James-Lee, and Claire Barrett. They all shared their stories and ideas around making workplaces more fair and equal, providing our audience with a wealth of take aways to enable them to drive changes within their business.
Over 50 delegates joined us for the morning, to network and to contribute to the conversation throughout our Q&A; posing questions to our speakers as we debated the changes that needed to be made and how.
We talked about things like why there aren’t enough women in tech jobs and how important it is for girls to feel supported in school. We also discussed the fact that companies with more women in charge tend to do better financially.
Lindsay Lucas shared a great quote from Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF): “Having a seat at the table means having a voice in decisions that affect all aspects of a company’s operations. Companies with more women in decision-making positions simply perform better. They are more profitable, more sustainable, and better positioned for future success.”
Whist Harriet shared stats specifically on the tech sector, highlighting the stark reality that only 19% of students studying subjects like computer science and engineering are women.
Claire Barrett spoke of the three key pillars that organisations need to address when considering changes; organisational leadership, team management and community participation. Claire also introduced us to to the term Non-Promotable Tasks (NPTs), where women spend a lot of time on tasks that don’t help them get promoted and how this is a growing problem across the globe.
Alexis spoke of her dedication to building a community of women to raise up women; to celebrate them and to recognise what they do throughout the South West, with the West Country Women’s Awards.
Th talks all offered something very different and reassured us that some progress is being made, but there is a long way to go. It was incredible to see engagement from our audience who embraced the topic wholeheartedly and committed to being more conscious in their own workplaces.
Events like She Leads give us hope. They show us that change is possible. By supporting and listening to women at work, we can make things better for everyone.
Thank you to our wonderful four speakers and to everyone who joined us for the morning. Stay tuned for our next event in May:
Nexus Presents: Bouncing Back from Failure Join us for our next event on 2nd May, where we’ll have 4 new speakers sharing their insights on how to bounce back when things don’t go as planned.
Tickets on sale now.
