Still climbing: Why women aren’t advancing enough, and what organisations can do next

Background
Despite record gains for women on UK boards, progress into senior leadership roles remains stubbornly slow. Women now enter the workforce in large numbers and make up strong mid‑career pipelines, yet far too few advance into executive roles, CEO positions or other influential posts.

Event details
This webinar unpacks the real reasons behind this stalled momentum, from structural and cultural barriers to the lifecycle factors that disproportionately affect women’s careers, including caring responsibilities, burnout risks, and the growing conversation around menopause and work. Drawing on the latest evidence, we explore why the “broken rung,” “glass ceiling,” “leaky pipeline,” and “care/er cliff” persist and what sits beneath the gaps between women’s aspirations and actual progression. But this session doesn’t stop at diagnosing the problems. It turns evidence and insight into action, outlining what employers can do to create leadership pathways where women genuinely thrive.

Aligned with the International Women’s Day 2026 theme of Give to Gain, this webinar invites employers and leaders to reflect on how giving – through inclusive policies, supportive cultures, mentoring, and equitable opportunities ultimately multiplies impact across workplaces. Integrating perspectives from feminist praxis, including the inner narratives that shape confidence, identity and voice, this webinar offers a nuanced, realistic and forward‑looking view of how to accelerate women’s leadership and why the next decade must be one of intentional organisational change.

How will participants/delegates benefit from attending?
Participants will gain clear, evidence‑based insight into why women’s progression into senior leadership has slowed and what practical steps organisations can take to change this. They will leave with a stronger understanding of the structural, cultural and lifecycle barriers that shape women’s careers, and discover actionable ways to build more equitable pathways through inclusive leadership, better job design and supportive workplace cultures.

Topics we will cover

• The leadership gap today
• Structural, cultural, and lifecycle barriers
• Inner conversations holding women back
• Closing the gap

Agenda outline
10:00 Welcome and housekeeping
10:05 The leadership gap today: What the evidence shows
10:15 Structural, cultural, and lifestyle barriers holding women back
10:25 Women’s inner conversations
10:30 Closing the gap: practical actions employers can take now
10:40 Q&A and discussion on practical challenges and experiences
11:00 Close

The event will be chaired by Naomi Clayton, Chief Executive Officer, Institute for Employment Studies.

Speaker biography
Dr Meenakshi Krishnan is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies, where she leads IES’s programme of work on equity, diversity and inclusion research and consulting. She has over 20 years’ experience helping employers, government bodies and international organisations understand and tackle workforce inequalities, improve people practices and strengthen inclusive leadership.

Meenakshi specialises in understanding the barriers that shape women’s career progression across the work and care lifecycle — including maternity, caring responsibilities, mid‑career progression and menopause. At IES, she has led major projects on employer behaviour change in relation to EDI, strengthening inclusive leadership development, and evidence-based approaches to reducing workplace inequality. She is currently leading a study on age‑inclusive recruitment and pregnancy and parental discrimination in the workplace.

A certified leadership coach, Meenakshi has designed and facilitated women’s leadership programmes for a wide range of organisations. She is also a regular speaker at national conferences on women’s work, workplace equality and inclusive organisational cultures.