29/01/2026
I’m taking a different stance on this year’s International Women’s Day theme: Give To Gain.
In the workplace, women are already giving — time, energy, insight and effort.
And yet progress on pay, progression and recognition remains slow, uneven and fragile.
That’s because effort has consistently been redirected away from the true battlefield — where power, decisions, funding and accountability for opportunity actually sit.
Women are not passive. They are calling out inequity, sharing experiences, demanding change, and investing significant time and intellectual energy in finding solutions. Much of this happens in women-owned and women-dominated spaces dedicated to addressing workplace barriers. These spaces matter — they provide language, validation and shared understanding.
But they also have a structural limitation. They typically exclude the gatekeepers of stasis versus change — those who control priorities, resources and outcomes.
This is the focus of my IWD26 talk:
Give To Gain? Why focusing effort off the true battlefield won’t deliver change in the workplace — and what will.
Grounded in original research and the practical strategies set out in my book Understand: Dare: Thrive, the session focuses on how women can redirect effort back inside organisations, so change can accelerate where it counts.
This International Women’s Day, Give To Gain is reframed — not as a call for women to give more, but as a call to focus supported effort where it can finally deliver workplace change.
