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Please could you list out some key barriers you’ve experienced personally or seen others experience?

I believe that most women have experienced or seen other women experience barriers in their workplace. For me coming to London, I was never truly sure whether these were because I was a foreign ‘Aussie’, raised in a low-income household, a female or having brought my wife and dog (the two are separate!) with me! 

The feeling of not being seen or heard; the lack of eye contact whilst in discussions at the Box was disarming and confusing to me back in the early days of my career. I guess back then, if you didn’t look, sound, or profess the right family history, you were never invited to participate in future business leader courses or opportunities. In fact, I’ve never been selected, so perhaps this just ignites the desire to fight harder!

As a sports-avid Aussie girl, I found the lack of invitations to sporting events funny… but don’t worry, there was always an invitation to the Chelsea flower show! 

Whilst it’s easy to speak about the barriers, however, I personally believe that in 2025, it’s not useful to reignite a conversation about barriers. Instead, I think it’s time to reflect on the progress that has been made and what is required to accelerate this progress in 2025 and beyond. 

I feel privileged to have been part of the Dive-In initiative which is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year within Lloyds of London marketplace and has provided such an enormous impetus in championing equality and opportunity for all. I’ve experienced life at Lloyd’s both pre-Dive-In and post and the positive impact has been remarkable. 

One of my most poignant moments in my experience of equality, diversity and inclusion was at my former company townhall where a senior leader of the company took the stage and talked about his personal journey of becoming aware of his own unconscious biases authentically and emotionally. He acknowledged how threatened it felt to be surrounded by people that were unlike him. I will never forget this – a true goosebump moment! I felt that, from that day forward, things started to change and I learnt the truth and influence of leaders setting the tone on how we wish to treat one another. 

Are there any that have been repetitive, in-built into society?

I was lucky to be born into a household where gender stereotypes did not exist – a gender-neutral household. With my father passing away very young (37 years old), my mother was left to raise four girls under the age of 12 and we had no choice but to roll one’s sleeves up and get on with it. Everything and anything was possible, no real or imagined barriers could exist. 

The little world of growing up in the Australian countryside turned out to be a protective bubble from the institutionalised biases that exist in London due to its obvious history and cultural diversity. So it’s hard for me to comment on societal barriers per se – I think one’s immediate upbringing, role models and path to resilience may have an impact on one’s perspective of ‘barriers’, but I can only comment based on my own experience.

And are there any unique, one-off experiences you’ve had/seen that you’d like to mention?

On the positives, a couple of my key experiences that influenced my path include: 

Male mentoring – at the time, there was no such thing as mentoring. I was lucky to have had a number of senior male leaders over the past 25 years of my career that have guided me/taken me under their wing. Such leaders took the time to reassure me and provide me with the confidence to take the leaps I have taken in my career. For example, I recall being at a conference in Hong Kong whilst working within Asia Pacific and, after a long conference, turning to my boss and stating I do not think this reinsurance business is for me. At the time I was struggling with the corporate boundaries and complexities of working within one of the largest reinsurance companies of the world…he laughed out loud and said, “you have passion and enthusiasm, and the fact you really give a ‘sh1t’ makes you perfect for this industry”.

Similarly, when moving to London, I expressed my concern of whether I would fit in i.e. could a brash, opinionated lesbian Aussie female trading at Lloyd’s work in the context of Old-World English culture?! My mentor’s response… “that’s what we need – people with opinions – DIFFERENT opinions and experiences”. 

This embracing of diversity gave me opportunities and is something I’ll always be grateful for and respectful of. 

Equal pay – after reporting to a number of male bosses for the first decade of my career, my first female boss, whilst reviewing my performance and contribution to the team and company gave me a significant pay increase (without promotion) to bring me up to the level of my male peers – for no other reason than because this was the right thing to do. This reinforced to me, it’s not about being a feminist – it’s about being principled and respecting everyone equally. 

In the 14-15 years you’ve been in the UK, have any of these barriers started to be lifted? And have any lifted entirely?

Yes, but now is not the time to relax. 

The global socio-political trends we are currently observing are frightening. Horrifyingly real and an enormous risk to slowing down and potentially reversing the positive progress we have made as humans. As a culture and as an industry in the past 10 years. 

All significant human progress takes time and requires us to go through different stages of awareness, intention and behaviour change. Just because the industry has voiced its intention to change and businesses have embraced basic KPI’s, doesn’t mean we are anywhere near a world of equality and inclusion. Whether this is about gender, ethnicity, religion, identity or sexuality… whether it is about the way we think, walk, talk, learn or respond to our environments… whether it is about values, traditions, beliefs or upbringing… the UK has learnt a lot, progressed a lot, but also (where convenient), forgotten a lot. 

Accelerate is a wonderful call to action for 2025. We cannot afford to be lulled back into accepting differences ahead of our human similarities and connections.

What steps have Carbon, or individuals within Carbon (yourself included), taken, to help enhance inclusivity within the business, thus making the UK insurance market a better place to work for all?

There are many initiatives and policies at Carbon to possibly talk about here – we are definitely committed to raising the bar and showing leadership in all policies and practices when it comes to EDI. 

I hope all Lloyd’s businesses, like ours, are setting high goals for accountability, which we are over-delivering on. 

Having said that, whilst measurable goals are essential to keep us all focussed on positive change, it’s even more important to us at Carbon that we establish, promote and reward a culture which is able to rise above any pre-existing and unconscious conditioning. 

I think this is well captured in how we live our lives at Carbon.

• Win as One – Carbon is a true meritocracy – we will always seek to recruit, employ and promote the best individual for the role and are proud to cast aside expectations and work with recruiters who understand this. In succeeding as a team, we need to respect the efforts of those we work with – respecting ‘similarities’ in upbringing, ethnicity, gender, culture is meaningless when it comes to being a ‘next generation’ industry leader.
• Speak up listen up – we endorse an anti-hierarchical approach which means we encourage the voice, opinion, ideas, passion of every individual. No voice, background, skin colour, gender or even experience or salary has license to dominate when it comes to continuous improvement which means the doors are eternally open to voices that inspire us and others around us.
  
• Keep Spirits High – sometimes we are so focused on the political side of gender equality, we forget that the notion of ‘fun’ and ‘humour’ can differ so widely across people and cultures. At Carbon, we rise above pre-defined concepts of fun in preference for ‘looking after’ one another. Whatever it takes to make your colleague laugh; to help them; to uplift them when needed. Keep it positive, open and inclusive!
• Blaze a Trail – innovation is fundamental to our business at Carbon and what makes us get up for work in the mornings. What is obvious to us is that innovation can only exist in an environment which is able to nurture and support divergent ideas. And divergence requires a mindset that embraces difference rather than reinforces it. I guess this means that if you find someone in the room who looks, sounds and thinks like you, it’s time to question your company’s ability to blaze a trail. At Carbon, we want people to come to the table thinking, “these people aren’t anything like me – how refreshing I’ll learn something new working with them!”

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