#InspireInclusion – what can we achieve on International Women’s Day 2024 and beyond

Alison Jones, a Partner at Kreston Reeves, writes about what International Women’s Day means for her and the accountancy/wealth advice business.

I was very encouraged to meet with a prospective new client recently who told me one of the reasons they chose Kreston Reeves as their accounting and business advisory firm was the clear gender equality within the firm and the profile of female partners like me.

We have all worked hard to achieve this in our firm, to maintain a fair and equal culture and we take our purpose and values seriously.

As a firm, we know that a gender, ethnic, age, experience and social background diverse workplace is a happy and successful one because, by bringing together our differences, we bring a better understanding of our clients goals and objectives and what success looks like to them.

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is #InspireInclusion and it aims to ‘imagine a gender equal world which is free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination’. A world that is diverse, equitable and inclusive, and where difference is valued and celebrated.

This year we are hosting in London an International Women’s Day Breakfast roundtable for a number of leading business women from different sectors to discuss this year’s theme, the ongoing issues and challenges they have faced in their careers and also to discuss how a more inclusive working environment can be created.

I’m sure this will lead to some excellent discussion and ideas being shared and we look forward to sharing this to our wider network in due course.

This year, once again, it is hard to believe that, despite this long-running campaign around International Women’s Day and all the positive work that is going on in our workplaces here in the UK, that when we look globally there is still so much inequality which continues for women around the world.

I wonder if we in the business world can do anything to change this for them. I suspect we can, but it is going to take time and that is why it is important to keep plugging away and why highlighting this once a year isn’t enough. We need to action this and have it in the forefront of our minds every day.

In the last six months the devastating effect of the October 7th attacks in Israel, the war taking place in Gaza, the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has now passed the two-year anniversary, all still lead the news agenda.

But, sadly, the inequity and suffering still carries on whilst our attention is turned elsewhere. Afghanistan still leads the way on inequality where there is an indefinite ban on secondary schools for girls, depriving some 3.5 million teenagers of an education and all the universities are still closed to female students. Women are no longer allowed to go into parks with their children and they are banned from many workplaces. How can it be right that they are being treated in this way?

Throughout the world there are so many inequalities and gender-based crimes that women encounter every day such as Africa and Syria. Pakistan still has significant amounts of domestic abuse and honour killings are prevalent. One in 10 girls in Africa still miss school due to period poverty.

There are times you might feel like me that on the one hand so much has been achieved and yet on the other hand for our sisters overseas, things just get worse.

Women from around the world will gather at the Summer Olympics in Paris in July and August this year and this is a great opportunity to reflect on the hard work and determination and sacrifice which all female athletes make to earn their place on the team and achieve medal success. I hope it is a moment for all of us to take and reflect. The eternal flame of the Olympic torch is a beacon of hope and I do believe that one day our collective action and the shared ownership for driving gender parity across the world will succeed.

We should all care about rights – human rights and the freedoms that belong to all of us, even if it isn’t always obvious what we can do to make things better.

My thought for this year is that everyone please on this one day stop and spare a thought for all the women and girls across the world that are not as lucky as us. And then make sure for the other 365 days we also give this issue our equal attention and action.

www.krestonreeves.com