DWF understands that every colleague has a role to play in creating an inclusive environment and a sense of belonging.
Creation of the Global Diversity and Inclusion Group was therefore led by the ambition for all our colleagues to take ownership of D&I and empower them to embed it within everything they do at DWF. The first group meeting took place on 20 January 2014 with just ten volunteers.
As D&I has been embedded throughout our organisation and grown in importance with DWF's colleagues, clients and communities, the group has expanded considerably with representation from all D&I strands and networks. This diversity of thought helps to hold the group to account, to challenge the status quo and drive change through active management.
The group meets on a quarterly basis to review and track DWF's D&I performance and take action to improve diversity and inclusion across our global organistion. The Group is also responsible for reporting on progress to the Board.
Key statistics from the last ten years include:
- Membership expansion to 120 senior leaders and D&I champions.
- Representation from all 4 DWF divisions in 26 locations across 12 countries.
- More than 100 group meetings have been held, 2 meetings each quarter, timed to enabled as many global colleagues to join as possible.
Whilst DWF are incredibly proud of all the work this group has done and continues to do, below are just a few highlights.
- The creation of the DWF global diversity and inclusion strategy.
- The development and subsequent expansion of the DWF 2025 diversity and inclusion targets.
- Providing a global forum for members to share best practice, feedback and ideas across divisions, practice areas, locations and countries.
- Developing ongoing action plans.
- Driving greater colleague D&I data declaration.
- Piloting new D&I initiatives such as our inclusive leadership training.
- Collaborating with key clients and sharing ideas.
Seema Bains, Partner, celebrates 10 years as Head of the Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Group along with three of the original members of the Group – Catherine Haslam, John Lezemore and Julie Simms.
Seema said, 'I am proud of what the Group has achieved over the last 10 years. Over that time we have made huge strides with global membership and expansion of our networks helping change the way we work. We have progressed the D & I agenda not only internally but it now plays a fundamental role in our engagement with clients. It is great to see the work we do is recognised in external benchmarking. I am excited to see what else we can achieve to support greater diversity and inclusion at DWF.'
