I remember the conversations in 2020.
Every single organisation I was working with suddenly wanted to talk about women. About inclusion. About equity. About “doing better.” There were town halls. There were pledges. There were budgets appearing from nowhere for women’s networks and leadership programmes and keynotes about the gender pay gap. I was getting booked left, right and centre by companies who, seemingly overnight, had discovered that women were underrepresented at the top and wanted to do something about it.
And I thought, finally.
Finally, they’re listening. Finally, the conversations I’ve been having for decades are landing where they need to land, in the boardrooms, on the leadership agendas, in the budgets that actually mean something.
I should have known better.
Fast forward to 2026, and here we are.
Sixty-five per cent of Fortune 500 companies have pulled out of corporate equality reporting. Yep 65% if you want to read it in numbers.
Let that land.
We’ve not been experiencing a gradual decline; it is a mass exodus.
Companies that once competed to show how committed they were to diversity, equity and inclusion are now falling over themselves to distance themselves from it. The same organisations that put women’s faces on their annual reports and hosted panels on International Women’s Day are dismantling the very programmes that were supposed to make those panels unnecessary.
Oh, and believe me, it’s not just the corporations.
The UK government has cut international aid for women and girls by more than half since 2021. Let me say that again: MORE THAN HALF
Programmes that educated girls, that provided emergency healthcare to survivors of sexual violence in conflict zones, that kept women alive, are closing their doors. They even went as far reclassifing modern slavery and human trafficking, which deeply impacts women, moving responsibility from the minister for safeguarding to the minister for illegal migration and asylum. A minister actually said on record that the UK needs to stop being a “global charity” and start being an investor. As though investing in women and girls isn’t the single most effective development investment any country can make. As though the data hasn’t been screaming this for decades.
The UN theme for International Women’s Day this year is “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls.” Beautiful words. And the same UN tells us that at the current rate of progress, it will take 286 years to close the legal gap between men and women. Two hundred and eighty-six years. That’s not an acceptable timeline; that is a blatant admission that nobody with power is actually trying.
So what happened to all that progress?
Here’s what happened.
It was never progress.
It was performance!
In 2020, companies didn’t suddenly care about women; they cared about optics. The world was watching, social media was unforgiving, and the cost of being seen as behind the curve felt and was high.
So they acted.
They created the networks, they hired the speakers (hello, yes, that includes me), they allocated the budgets, and they posted the content.
But (and it’s a big but) they never changed the system.
They decorated it. You know how you put that sheet over the pile of laundry that needs putting away when guests come over… that kind of decoration.
And the moment the spotlight moved, the moment the political weather shifted, the moment it became easier to drop the language of inclusion rather than to defend it, rather than defend the women, the global majority, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ people in their companies… they dropped it.
One by one.
Quietly.
Without announcement or apology.
Just a slow, careful retreat disguised as “streamlining” or “evolving our approach” or my personal favourite, “integrating inclusion into everything we do,” which is corporate code for “we’re not doing it anymore.”
If that sounds harsh, good. It should.
Because we need to call out the BS when we see it.
Let me talk to the women now.
Because this is the part that matters.
I know you felt it. I know you noticed the networks going quiet. I know you noticed the budget getting reallocated, the women’s leadership programme getting “paused” and never restarted, and the ERGs losing their executive sponsor.
I know you noticed because you always notice. Women in leadership are trained to read rooms, and you’ve been reading this one loud and clear.
And I know what it’s done to you.
Half the women in corporate roles right now say the current climate has changed their career plans. Half!!
Black women have lost their jobs at a staggering rate, and many out of work for over a year.
Women in leadership are staying quieter in meetings. They’re avoiding conversations about equality because it feels risky. They’re prioritising job security over career growth. They’re taking lower pay because the ground feels unstable and making waves feels dangerous, really dangerous.
Lady, you’re not imagining it. The ground has shifted, and the women who were supposed to benefit from all that 2020 energy are now carrying the emotional weight of its failure, whilst still delivering exceptional work.
Because that’s what we do. We carry, we deliver, we hold it together.
Until we can’t.
So, here’s where I stand.
I am not going to spend March posting inspirational quotes over sunset photos and calling it empowerment. I am not going to list “women who inspire me” as though that changes anything structural.
And I am definitely not going to pretend that everything is fine because the calendar says it’s International Women’s Month and we’re all supposed to be celebrating.
I’m going to tell the truth.
And then I’m going to do what I’ve always done: activate women to take back their power.
Because here’s what 35 years in business has taught me.
The system will not save us.
It was never designed to.
The policies help, the programmes matter, and we should fight to protect them. But they are not the source of your power.
YOU ARE!
Your brilliance, your voice, your refusal to accept a world that treats your rights as optional, that’s where the power lives. And no government, no CEO, no quiet budget cut can take that away from you… not unless you let them.
This month I’m calling it what it is: “Enough Is Enough: Take Back Your Power.”
Every post, every piece, every conversation this March is about one thing. Women waking up to the fact that we are the change we have been waiting for. We always have been. And I refuse to let another International Women’s Day pass by dressed in purple ribbon whilst the substance gets stripped away behind closed doors.
If that resonates with you, stay close this month; it’s not the time to unsubscribe because we have world-changing work to do. And I have things to say.
So next week, I’m releasing something I’ve been working on. Something that needed to be said out loud. Something I’m calling The Queen’s Speech – I’m doing it live on Thursday, 19th March at 12:00 GMT on LinkedIn and YouTube.
It’s called Enough Is Enough. And it’s for every woman who is tired of waiting.
Because the truth is, they said it was progress. And then they took it back. They took it back and are trying to take us back to the 1950’s.
But they cannot take back what lives inside you. They never could.
If this landed, share it with a woman who needs to hear it. And if you’re a woman in leadership who knows there’s more waiting for you,
I’d love to hear from you.
I’m activated and I’m here.
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