Right from the start we’ve championed being an inclusive business, where we value and encourage different voices. A fair, fun and *equal* place to build a career, irrespective of your social background, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or indeed any other factor. As we look around us, it’s all about exceptional talent, and hard work.

We’ve had no late conversion in this thinking - it’s in our DNA. And whilst gender isn’t the whole picture, women represent half the population so it’s a really important place to start. And our newly formed Diversity Group is challenging us on our make up where we seek to have more ethnically diverse colleagues.

We’ve always worked hard to accelerate the pace of change. From the beginning in 1989, and over the past 31 years, we can all be proud that our philosophy is about ‘deeds AND words’. Actions speaking louder than words. Our metrics, year on year, tell our story of equality. That it’s worth the effort.

We walk the talk by being a meritocratic consultancy where talent, inclusion and equality matter. This year’s International Women’s Day #IWD theme is ‘Choose to Challenge ‘, so it fits our culture perfectly!

We believe it’s important to champion and support equality within and outside the workplace - where everyone can contribute, to be ambitious in our thinking, productively challenge established thinking, creating better outcomes for everyone.

There are many things to be proud of. We believe in diverse thinking . We build close alliances with our international partners over at PROI Worldwide (PROI) and Global Communication Partners ( GCP), promoting diversity of thinking, appreciation of cultural nuances, geopolitical issues. This localised understanding informs our global recommendations.

On top of this, we have a historic record of supporting charities - for 31 years 1% of each year’s profits has been donated to our charity of the year - which we all select . This year it’s The Felix Project (The Felix Project - London Charity Fighting Hunger and Food Waste).

And we help challenge inequalities in certain sectors. Today that’s more visible with our pro-bono partnership with the great work being championed by the The Diversity Project - helping them shine a light on diversity and inclusion.

We are a founding partner of the BBC’s pioneering 50:50 Project. We’re immensely proud to be early adopters of the project, where we make gender diversity visible by checking and publishing metrics for our own events, content and contributions.

And we like to stand out from the crowd, and these principles have seen us through from the start of Lansons in 1989. What does this look like today?

• Low Gender pay gap and we have voluntarily published our data for the third year running
• 65% of us are women
• 20 out of our 28 partners working in the business are women, that’s 71%
• 14 out of 22 of the Board are women, that’s 64%
• Our leadership teams reflect this too, 6 out of 8 (71%) of the management team are women. And our exec committee of 5 breaks down to be 60% women and 40% men
• Our partnership sets us apart for many reasons. Almost a third of our people share financial ownership of the business, we have consistently invited in new partners, and 61% of Lansons’ equity is in the hands of women
• Almost a fifth of our account directors and above started here as account executives, including three of our board directors and five associates. There is opportunity to grow and develop
• Over the last 3 years 40% of our junior recruits were from non-Russell Group universities or had no degree
• Work experience - we continued our partnerships with the Social Mobility Foundation and Women of the Future Foundation, Making the Leap, and continued a partnership with Drive Forward , a charity that helps young people who have been through the care system to gain employment. 43% of our work placements in the last three years were from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.
• HighTide, the award winning charity we have supported for 13 years, champions diverse voices and reflects the society we live in

For the last 16 years, we have been a Great Place to Work, appearing in the top 50 companies in the mid-sized category and have won Agency of the Year 26 times, which we are incredibly proud of. Our sustainability record is a mark of our collective passion for sustainability, with 12 years as carbon neutral.

Throughout our 31 year history, we have been gender neutral, attracting huge talent, skill and enthusiasm which flows through our business.

I’m proud to work with so many impressive colleagues, all bringing something unique to our work at Lansons.

We always want to do more. As we enter our 31th year, it’s great to look back on all the fantastic progress we’ve made - but there’s still plenty to look forward to.

By being an equal and fair place to work, we are a place were everyone can flourish.

Let’s all celebrate #IWD and ‘Choose to Challenge ‘ and make our own commitment today.