Event
LWN celebrates... Champions of Change
The Freshfields Women’s Network (LWN) are delighted to host the second event in its “LWN Celebrates…” speaker series, which marks 275 years of Freshfields and 100 years since women in the UK got the right to vote: an evening of celebrating “Champions of Change”. The panel of inspiring speakers will share insights on how organisations can support their talent pipeline, focusing on practical steps that can be taken to achieve real change and improve the gender balance at the more senior levels of the organisation.
About our panellists
- Vandita Pant - Group Treasurer and Head of Europe at BHP, Vandita is responsible for BHP’s structural financial risk, liquidity investment portfolio, corporate finance & debt portfolio, capital management functions and strategic transactions. Vandita previously worked at RBS, BNP Paribas and ABN Amro Bank in India, having started her career with a specialised financial consulting firm. As BHP’s most senior executive in Europe, Vandita has advocated for BHP’s sector-leading approach to diversity and inclusion, and for policies that support it, including transparency on gender pay and investment in STEM subjects.
- Lorna Fitzsimons - Lorna is co-founder of ‘The Pipeline’, which works with organisations to achieve their diversity goals and develop their female talent in a way that adds value to their business. The Pipeline look to identify the areas where organisations are most likely to lose their female talent so that they can seek to address this structural weakness in their business. Lorna is a trusted advisor to large corporations and Whitehall on gender and developing executive female talent, and is deeply committed to unlocking women’s potential at the top of corporate Britain.
- Julian Pritchard - Julian is a partner at Freshfields and heads up the Freshfields Global Transactions Group in London, and has acted for many of the world’s leading corporations, private equity firms and investment banks. This year, Julian was ranked in the Financial Times’ list of business leaders recognised for championing women in the work place, the FT HERoes List.
About our moderator
- Jenny Leahy - Jenny is an associate in Freshfields’ antitrust, competition and trade team. Jenny advises global corporate clients on all aspects of competition law. She has experience of engaging with the European Commission, the UK Competition and Markets Authority and other competition law enforcement agencies around the world and has particular industry expertise in the consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and financial services sectors. Recent highlights include advising on a number of complex, high-profile UK M&A transactions. Based in London, she has also spent time on secondment in our Washington DC office. Jenny is a passionate advocate for gender equality and proudly co-chairs the Freshfields London Women’s Network.
Date: Thursday 27 September 4:30pm – 7pm
The event is by invitation only. Please contact the Freshfields London Women’s Network about future events.
