#BreakTheBias

International Women’s Day (#IWD2022) recognises and celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women around the world.

The day also marks a challenge to all of us to accelerate gender parity, and there are many ways to get involved:

• Celebrate the achievements of women
• Raise awareness about equality for women
• Lobby for accelerated gender parity
• Fundraise for local women’s charities

LPPI is committed to increasing diversity and making our workplace as inclusive as possible. In support of #IWD2022, we will support national or local charities that play a positive role in helping women succeed in the workplace.

In the meantime, we have a few #BreakTheBias stories of our own to tell. Meet Lisa, Rebecca and Emma who explain why they feel this day is important to them.

Lisa Leveridge
People and Culture Operations Lead

After a nine-month career break looking after my two young children, returning to work was a little daunting’ but I needed more than the wife or mum role. From early interviews I was encouraged and impressed by the LPPI mindset, the values and culture it’s building and the senior leadership driving this positive change. Benefiting from this environment, and being part of making a difference for others, is a great feeling.

Rebecca Williams
Assistant Company Secretary

I’ve been with LPPI since the beginning and they have helped me develop professionally by giving me the tools to build a successful career in the Company Secretarial world. They also supported flexible, part-time working following my return from maternity leave and I even shared part of my maternity leave with my husband!

Emma Marlow
Head of Legal

Throughout my career I have experienced being the minority gender; I still occasionally get those disconcerting moments when I realise I am the only female in the room (or virtual meeting) and I promptly brush them aside, along with the self-doubts. I am fortunate to have experienced relatively little overt gender discrimination in the workplace, and nothing that I was not able to deal with. But gender-related issues have certainly been involved in various career decisions I have taken, and I have supported other women whose experience has been more challenging.

One of the things that attracted me to LPPI was the prominence it gave to its diversity agenda. I am proud to be part of an organisation that recognises there is still a long way to go in gender equality, that it is not all about the numbers, and that it is important to keep bias on the agenda and to keep having those awkward discussions if we’re going to do better. I am a firm believer that diversity brings success, so it’s a win-win.

I think there is still lots for us to do around self-awareness and our unconscious bias, and I very much include women (and myself) in that.

As a mother of two daughters, for me “breaking the bias” would mean that when they make important life decisions they won’t question themselves or experience self-doubt based on their gender.