Last night we celebrated women entrepreneurs at our "Evening at the Expo" - an immersive and evocative digital expo, followed by a discussion with three excellent panellists, Kanya King CBE, Sophie Pender and Amanda Thomson. Thanks to each of them for sharing such interesting insights from their unique and inspirational journeys to become business leaders.
Listening to Sophie, in particular, struck a chord with me – social mobility is something very close to my heart. Having come from a Lincolnshire village where my parents ran the sub-post office, I'm a proud member of the country's least exclusive members' club – The 93% Club. This is the student-run charity for people who attended state schools, that Sophie founded in 2016 after studying at the University of Bristol, and feeling that she didn't "fit in".
Reflecting on my own career, I was lucky to have supervisors who supported me to be myself at work. I recognise this is not always the case, and each of the panellists shared examples of overcoming adversity to succeed; how being told they couldn't do something was their source of determination to prove that person wrong!
Although only 7% of the population in the UK are privately educated, the percentage is disproportionately higher when you look at the legal profession. Offering alternative routes into law, such as apprenticeships, can help to open doors but we also need to do more to ensure that those from diverse socio-economic backgrounds feel like they belong and can progress to senior levels. Mentoring schemes can help here, but a range of other measures such as targets, active sponsorship and networks like The 93% Club (we also have a great social mobility network, Advance), are also needed to make progress.
I'm proud to have been a member of the Government commissioned Taskforce in 2022 that was led by the City of London Corporation to improve socio-economic diversity at senior levels in UK financial and professional services. The Taskforce produced a set of recommendations in 2023 and also launched Progress Together, which provides great support to firms in the financial and professional services sectors and advocates for changes in policy and practice.
An excellent visual representation of our inspiring panel discussion was created by Raquel from Eshopic, our brilliant Scribe for the evening, that really captures the powerful and thought-provoking themes that emerged from the evening: some great ideas and inspiration for how we can accelerate progress to improve diversity and bring about change for the better in the legal industry.
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