Events – Balance in Business Initiative

EVENTS AND NETWORKING

CONNECT. LEARN. SHARE

Inspiring keynotes, practical advice and open roundtable discussions.
Our event series offers learning and networking opportunities.

Upcoming Events....

7 October 2026, at the IoD, London - Celebrating the BiB Community

The Balance in Business Community – Celebration Dinner at the IoD
Recognising Leadership. Accelerating Change.

The Balance in Business Community brings together BiB Award winners and Roll of Honour leaders — the organisations that have demonstrated what deliberate, sustained progress on gender balance actually looks like. This is not a network built on aspiration. It is built on evidence: companies that have moved, measurably and at pace, and are willing to share how.

This year’s applicants set a new benchmark. The combined improvement in FTSE Women Leaders rankings across this year’s field exceeded 200 places — in just three years. That is not organic drift. It is the result of senior leaders who made gender balance a personal, visible priority: not delegated, but owned.

We invite you to join us for an Evening Reception, Dinner and Networking to celebrate and recognise those who stand firm in their commitment, and those who continue to raise the bar — connecting with each other and inspiring those who follow.

Highlights from 2026

INSEAD Alumni Balance In Business Awards 2026

4th June saw the announcement of the winners for the 4th Annual Balance in Business Awards. This presentation was an opportunity to celebrate businesses driving real change and improving gender representation in the workplace. During the presentation, we recognised the leaders shaping a fairer, more inclusive future for business.

Maintaining a sustained focus on equal opportunity in practice—and on strengthening gender balance in senior leadership—has required real persistence. Economic pressure, political turbulence and competing priorities have intensified, and while many organisations are slowing their efforts, some are stepping back altogether. It is precisely in moments like this that discipline, resilience, innovation and committed leadership matter most. Real leadership is demonstrated by those who stay the course when it would be easier to move on.

In partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group, this event brought together a small group of CEOs and Chairs from organisations at the leading edge of gender balance for an open and candid roundtable discussion on best practices and the challenges faced in achieving them.

The session was moderated by Professor Stanislav Shekshnia (INSEAD) and delivered some clear messages:

Practical Initiatives That Work

“Bring your daughter, sister, niece or goddaughter to workday” helped male employees personally connect with women’s experiences, softening resistance and contributing to a broader culture shift in previously male-dominated environments
Flexible working with full pay for mothers has proven highly effective at retaining senior women — many are now COOs, CCOs, and CEOs
Expanding talent pools by adding senior women’s referrals to candidate lists and removing “time to fill” KPIs increased diversity hires
Career return programmes (e.g. JP Morgan reintegrates 100+ women annually) address non-linear career paths
Early sponsorship and role modelling in professional services helps close the drop-off from 50% female senior associates to under 20% female partners

Strategic Levers

Hiring targets (e.g. 50/50 junior hires) enforced through KPIs delivered measurable results without lowering standards
Visibility awards for women one level below ExCo raised confidence and promotion rates
Embedding D&I goals into business KPIs — not standalone HR metrics — drives real accountability

Culture and Retention

Psychological safety, genuine flexibility, and menopause support are critical to retaining senior women
Childcare subsidies are modest investments relative to wider talent development costs but significantly reduce career drop-off
Gender-bilingual mentorship programmes (male and female mentors) showed a 95% success rate in career advancement

Leadership Priorities

CEO ownership is essential — without it, efforts remain superficial
Data transparency and internal publication of diversity metrics sustain focus and accountability
Protecting mentoring and coaching budgets during economic downturns is critical to avoid backsliding

Next Steps

Participants agreed to co-create a practical playbook of proven actions, supported by the London Stock Exchange Group, to drive collective accountability across organisations.

Highlights from 2025

Career Path to CEO - Research insights

17th September 2025 at Dawn Capital, London

Exploring womens’ journeys to CEO

This event presented the results of a ground-breaking research project in which Professor Stanislav Shekshnia (INSEAD) and Florence Hamilton (INSEAD Alumni Balance in Business Founder) interviewed 30 female CEOs from the FTSE 350 and top 50 UK private companies, as well as executive search leaders and key decision makers.

Research goals:

Learn how women navigate the path to CEO.
Discuss how to support and appoint more women into top roles.

Encourage more women to actively pursue CEO roles.
Encourage decision makers to take the ‘risk’ – and unlock untapped leadership potential.

Keynote Speakers:

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox – CEO, 20-First
Ronan Dunne – Chairman and Strategic Advisor. Chair – Six Nations Rugby

BiB Founding Partner and Awards Sponsor

Highlights from 2024

Balance in Business – Breakfast at the London Stock Exchange

A quiet room at the London Stock Exchange early in the last month of 2024 saw a gathering of CEOs from a range of sectors and company sizes. They were gathering to share some thoughts on the future of gender balance in the midst of a complicated geopolitical context, laced with a degree of backlash.

What’s Next for Women, DEI and the business case for balance?

The conversation was under Chatham House rules, and the sharing was honest and stark. For anyone running businesses with operations in the US, their DEI departments and efforts were under threat, if not directly in the line of fire. That would be likely to impact Europe and the UK too.

Yet they acknowledged that, for the people in the room, not much would change. They’d never been gender balancing because of compliance. These CEOs were convinced that balance was beneficial for their bottom lines, and their job was to build the culture to let it blossom. Most of them were recipients of BIB Awards, so they were already recognised for past progress.

Adaptation Not Elimination

However, several CEOs admitted they might be adjusting how they go about it. Some of the ideas that resonated and were repeated by several different companies around the room:

Leadership: it’s a leadership issue first and foremost. If the CEO and their team aren’t convinced and convincing, as well as formally accountable for balance, it doesn’t happen. It can’t be delegated. But it does have to be pushed down to all management levels, preferably through education, metrics and culture.
Framing: How you frame the topic of gender balance is key to its receptivity by all populations. Avoid framing as a women’s issue, with all the focus, programmes, and targets concerned with ‘women.’ It has to be clearly and consistently linked to business performance, the bottom line, accessing talent and markets. Leaders need to carry this message and connect the dots for their people – over years.
Culture: Building psychologically safe cultures, and measuring it is the requirement for any efforts at gender balancing to work and stick. Getting women (or, increasingly, younger staff) into toxic environments is a waste of recruitment spending, as they are unlikely to stay.
Vocabulary: Efforts going forward might be more effective if the words and formulas used were more carefully chosen to work with both men and women. For example:
- become more gender-neutral in communications
- avoid women-branded or women-only events/ initiatives
- replace targets for women with targets expressed as ‘60% maximum of any gender…’

Several companies shared that their young recruits are absolutely attached to visible proof of efforts on representation and culture. That the talent pipeline of women is now so strong that it will be impossible to ignore, except in tech and start-ups. There, where the future is being designed, is overwhelmingly male.

So there remains much to do, and the context to work on gender balance has gotten more complex. This may allow, noted some, a clearer return to prioritising gender balance, rather than bundling it up in much broader diversity envelopes.

All found the conversation enlightening and honest. We hope it will be only the first of many. Learning from each other, and becoming ever more skilled at gender balancing business will remain a relevant leadership edge.

That’s what BIB is hoping to support. See you next time?

INSEAD Alumni Balance in Business Awards - Gala Dinner

Held at the IoD in Pall Mall on Thursday, 9th May 2024

In partnership with the Institute of Directors (IoD), the Balance in Business Awards 2024 Gala Dinner was held on 9th May 2024 at the Institute of Directors, Pall Mall, London.

The Gala Dinner was an opportunity to learn from the FTSE350 & top 50 private organisations who are leading the way in levelling the gender-balance playing field in business.

Read the 2024 Winners’ Stories

Keynote Speakers:

Sir Robin Budenberg CBE – Chair Lloyds Banking Group, Chair of the Crown Estate
Milena Mondini de Focatiis – CEO, Admiral Group
Vivienne Artz OBE – CEO FTSE Women Leaders

BiB Founding Partner and Awards Sponsor

Highlights from 2023

Best practices for achieving
gender balance in British business

We’re just starting but we’re starting strong! This is the first organically grown initiative out of the BiB Awards 2023. A collaboration between FTSE Women Leaders Review, Law Debentures and INSEAD Alumni Balance in Business.

Listen to 3 great leaders, sharing their stories of how they balanced their organisations:

Marks and Spencer Winner BiB Awards Best Strategy
Lloyds Banking Group, Winner BiB Awards Most Impact
The Law Debenture Group, FTSE250 Trailblazer runner-up

What we learned:

There is no “magic bullet”: it takes time and you need to keep at it
Lead by example
Accountability must be shared: all leaders must be accountable, it’s not just D&I (M&S has only 2 staff in D&I)
It is a leadership issue, a business transformation issue not a women’s issue nor men’s
Know your data, embed it into the company’s strategy, measure your results
It is about systemic integrated change
When hiring, cast your net wide and get credible candidates
Awards matter: they hold everyone accountable and actually people like to win awards

The panel was moderated by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox – who sits on the INSEAD Alumni Balance in Business board.

She is an expert in gender and generational balance – and its overlaps. Speaker, Author, Coach, Thinkers50, CEO 20-First.

UK INSEAD Alumni
Balance in Business Awards Dinner

The INSEAD Alumni Balance in Business Initiative in partnership with the Institute of Directors (IoD) held its inaugural Awards dinner on 9th May 2023 at the Institute of Directors in London.

Keynote Speakers:
– Denise Wilson OBE, CEO, FTSE Women Leaders Review;
– Pedro Pina, Vice President of YouTube EMEA;
– Danuta Gray, Chair of Direct Line plc.