Its highlight is the bank's inaugural DEI awards
UK banking giant Barclays has announced that it is holding an event to celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), with double Olympic champion, Dame Kelly Holmes as a special guest.
The event, on April 20, will enable those attending to share experiences, forge stronger understanding and address DEI challenges and opportunities within the market and beyond.
The event will also include the bank’s inaugural Diversity, Equity and Inclusion awards, in which the industry’s diversity heroes and inclusivity trailblazers will be recognised.
Holmes (pictured) is a global inspirational speaker and is passionate about elevating the DEI discussion on a variety of levels.
“I am excited to be teaming up to work in partnership with Barclays for the inaugural Mortgage Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion awards,” she said. “I understand there is some amazing work going on in the intermediary market, and I cannot wait to meet and celebrate with you all.”
Sidney Wager, mortgage intermediary partnerships director at Barclays, will be hosting a special conversation with Holmes, where the retired athlete will share unique experiences from her time in the British Army, on the track, and on recently coming out at the age of 52. She will also take questions from the audience and will be on hand to present the awards to the winners.
The awards aim to shine a spotlight on people driving positive change throughout the industry and to celebrate a range of diversity champions. All winners, who will be revealed on the night of the event, will receive an invitation to attend the occasion.
Barclays said it focused on six areas to strengthen its diverse, equitable and inclusive culture: disability, gender, LGBT+, multicultural, multigenerational, and socio-economic inclusion.
Ray Dempsey (pictured), group chief diversity officer at Barclays, stated: “In 2022, we continued to make progress against our DEI vision, including connecting with talent globally through our diverse hiring initiatives, providing focused development programmes, leveraging our employee resource groups to shape our business objectives, and further developing the way we use data to measure and drive progress.”
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