Is your Company Breaking The Mould to recognise Women In Leadership?
Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with Lisa Buckingham, OBE to discuss how we could offer support to each other.
Lisa is the IoD’s senior consultant on diversity strategy which includes seeing more women on Company Boards.
As former Editor of the Mail on Sunday, Lisa was previously City Editor of The Guardian. A role which coincided with her becoming a mother and gave her first hand experience of some of the issues she now advises on.
Cue my introduction of Bumps and the Boardroom and a discussion on how to keep the pipeline of female talent alive whilst supporting a women’s choice to have a family.
Lisa launched the Breaking the Mould Awards in 2013 to recognise those companies doing the most to create a pipeline of female executive talent as part of the drive to broaden diversity at the top of British business. The IoD was a founder partner of the Breaking the Mould Awards and they are gaining momentum as they head towards the countdown for their 2nd Award ceremony on 4 November 2014.
“Creating a vibrant pipeline to ensure female talent is not lost to business is an issue which is absolutely at the top of the agenda for companies both large and small – particularly with the threat that quotas will be imposed by the UK Government or Brussels unless the numbers of women in the boardroom increases rapidly.”
The Breaking the Mould Awards celebrate forward-looking companies which have schemes in place to ensure women are well represented in their boardrooms.
Three years ago Lord Davies of Abersoch, Patron of the Breaking the Mould Awards, recommended to government that 25 per cent of board positions should be filled by women by 2015. Unless business voluntarily moves towards these targets for better balanced boardrooms, government will intervene. New corporate thinking is needed and that is what the Breaking the Mould Awards seek to recognise.
Doing things differently and new ways of thinking make my heart sing. I like to be involved in anything that is innovative and ground breaking and Breaking the Mould is something I wholeheartedly support.
The categories are: Large Corporates/FTSE100, Medium-Sized businesses/FTSE250; Smaller Companies; Professional Services; Public Sector; and Not-for-Profit/Charity.
If you feel your company can apply you can go online to Submit an Entry. You can also Register to attend the Awards dinner or find out more about Sponsorship.
See you there.