Launching Our Women's Internal Network on International Women's Day

8 March is International Women’s Day (IWD): an occasion to celebrate women’s achievements and take stock of gender equality issues. The theme for this year’s IWD is ‘Investing in women: Accelerate progress’, which is certainly apt for the plans we have in store for this year.

There could be no better time to announce the relaunch of our Women’s Internal Network (WIN), a focus group for Venari Partners’ female employees. We’ve been talking about doing this for a long time and are delighted to have the programme up and running formally at last. Having had its first meeting today, the network will meet every two months with sessions structured around the following themes:

Celebrating WINs: How to achieve your goals and recognise your accomplishments.

WINspiration: As well as taking inspiration from each other, group members will also look outside our company and industry for role models and guidance to be the best version of themselves, both in and out of work.

WINfluence: Personal and career coaching to help build personal brands, increasing confidence and self-belief to be more influential in our areas of expertise.

We are excited to see what the schedule brings and will be sure to keep our network updated with the latest WIN news!

We also celebrated International Women’s Day internally with a fun lunchtime session. Employees from across our different practices gave short presentations on influential women from their sectors, taking in figures as diverse as the aviator Lettice Curtis, Greta Thunberg, and Leena Nair. Thanks to everyone who took part in this informative and fun exercise!

It is crucial to champion women’s successes – especially when there is still ground to make up to close the gender gap. In the UK, there is a 7.7% gender pay gap among full-time workers, and the figure almost doubles for part-time staff. While the World Economic Forum ranks the UK 15th for gender parity (out of 146 countries), the decrease in closing the gender gap for economic participation and opportunity between 2022-23 is, sadly, in line with a downward trend globally. The United Nations reports a $360 billion annual deficit in spending on gender-equality measures; at the current rate, it would take169 years to close the gap in economic participation and opportunity worldwide.

As sobering as these statistics may be, we want to do all we can to create a more just working world – and for us, that starts at home. We hope that WIN will be a source of inspiration and support for the women of Venari Partners and look forward to seeing what the future holds for this new venture!

We are proud to support the wellbeing of all our employees while promoting gender equality in the workplace. We are only too happy to help businesses meet their DEI goals – so just get in touch if you would like to find out more.