Pride and Prejudice
By Teamspirit on Wednesday, 30 May 2018
Last week we attended The Economist’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ event. It was a 24-hour conference, taking place for eight hours in each of Hong Kong, London, and New York, and live streamed here.
The day was a triumph. Chaired by senior editors from The Economist, our time was packed full of debates about how governments, companies, and individuals can become advocates, and help improve the rights of LGBTQ people worldwide.
Each panel was filled with astonishingly high profile speakers, with the day kicking off with a keynote panel chaired by Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist and the top-dogs from Whitbread, Vodafone, CBI, and Royal Mail. The discussion that followed was a challenging debate on transformation and inclusion, which chimed nicely with our goal at Teamspirit of transforming the world of finance for the better.
The keynote filled the room with energy, and the conference sustained that passion from start to finish. Informative panels were broken up by interactive workshops where we learnt more about about how to use data to tell stories (extremely relevant to our financial services clients!) and how to engage allies in the drive towards diversity.
Throughout the day, certain themes rose frequently to the surface. The power of storytelling was especially pertinent for those of us working in communications, as well as the reminder that we are perfectly placed to visibly enact change.
The day came to a close with a conversation between The Economist’s finance editor Helen Joyce and former deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg. The value of making sure that you are absolutely clear on why you’re doing what you’re doing, both internally and externally, was highlighted in a candid and entertaining discussion.
The LGBTQ rights discussion has crescendoed in recent years, and will continue to be at the forefront of everyone’s minds during June as Pride month takes place. We’ve learnt a lot from attending EY’s event on driving LGBTQ inclusion and this event at The Economist, and we’ve got some great events planned on this topic this year – please do get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
Written by Sandy Downs, Teamspirit
