Follow the leader

Colleague-led community updates

The Goal

by Savannah Charles, VIP Manager, SuperReturn

Last summer in the midst of both the global pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement, I co-founded AllInforma Nations with 3 other amazing individuals (Natasha Cooke, Sam Muturi and Tazrina Afrin) who share a similar mindset when it comes to race, culture and D&I. Borne out of both frustration and passion, the 4 of us came together organically to launch Informa’s global, company-wide colleague-led network that focuses on ethnic minorities and multiculturalism.

As founding leaders, we agreed that we needed to be heard and feel connected; that we wanted a level playing field; and that we deserved representation – not just for a moment, but in way that would create lasting change to make Informa a more inclusive workplace and a more equitable business where everyone feels like they belong.

To channel our efforts and purpose, we came up with 4 core values:

Fairness & Accountability
Safety & Respect
Education & Growth
Uplift & Empower

For further insights regarding what these values mean to us visit our Portal page.

Visit Portal

The AllInforma Nations founders, leaders and members have been working around the clock and behind the scenes to produce a range of initiatives that surround the network’s values. To date, some of Nations’ wins and impact can be seen below.

Recruitment principles
Conscious Inclusion training
Normalising holding uncomfortable conversations through our Humanising Exclusion series on Portal
Celebrating multicultural events through our Cultural Awareness series on Portal
AllInforma Nations portal page for all the resources
Partnership with Business Improvement Districts such as Better Bankside in London
Partner with charities that support minority communities
Successful launch event with nearly 200 attendees
21 days of community
Started 2021 with 250 members in 14 countries
28/01/2021 - Mentor Matchmaking Day 2021 - 90 sign ups, 113 meeting requests and 79 meetings from colleagues across 9 countries and all Informa divisions.
Successful partnership with London Progression Collaboration (LPC) to support our first apprenticeship outside of Informa (funded by Informa’s Apprenticeship Levy via a donation program). This helps support underrepresented groups in our communities

When creating AllInfoma Nations, we did a call for action to ask for volunteers to lead in their region/ divisions. Within Global Finance, we are grateful to have Katrina Okuyiga on board and part of the AIN leadership team. Kat also sits on the Connect D&I board and has made tremendous efforts to lead AIN Connect, UK and continues to work behind the scenes to implement Nations’ values.

Hear from Kat Okuyiga, VIP Manager, IM|Power

What do you do as an AIN Leader?

I work alongside Vincent Beard (now in TLA) to ensure all the great ideas and plans we come up with as a community are brought to fruition within Informa Connect. We meet once a month and work with committee members on bringing awareness and tackling challenges on D&I.

I am now also a part of the D&I board for Informa Connect and focus on how D&I can be brought into our employee life cycle and beyond. My first big project was working alongside the other D&I communities creating and launching the D&I agenda – a great success!

What has been your most memorable/ successful win?

It would definitely have to be the mentorship day Nations had at the start of the year. I had the opportunity to meet colleagues around Informa and cheekily matched with not one but two mentors. In the few short months of being their mentee, I have learnt a great deal on how to thrive within the business.

What are you working on at the moment?

Plenty of initiatives underway behind the scenes with a taskforce in place for each activity. Our top priorities at the moment are:

1 I AM NOT Series; breaking down negative stereotypes of different backgrounds through video campaign/workshops

2 Cultural Celebration Events; Creating awareness of the various cultural celebrations throughout the year with activities/ portal posts e.g. Diwali cooking challenge

3 Media Club - Film/ Book Club; Media club to explore diversified authors/ movies etc.

4 Summer Skills Workshop; for local School/ University Community, Connecting with the next generation of young people informing them of possibilities in the workforce

If you would like to get involved with AIN and the above activities, please do not hesitate to get in touch!

Nations Knowledge Live Presents

Microaggressions: Death by a thousand cuts

Earlier this week Nations Knowledge hosted a live discussion focused around Microaggressions.

What is a ‘microaggression’ and what does it feel like to experience them on a daily basis? If you want to hear from colleagues own their personal experiences – tune into the event recording, as our brave speakers brings the reality of the issue out in the open.

Watch now

You can send any follow up questions by emailing nations@informa.com

Update on
AllInforma Illuminate

AllInforma Illuminate is committed to supporting those with visible and invisible disabilities and conditions, both within Informa and for our clients and customers. There are over 1 billion people worldwide with a disability - making this community the world’s largest minority. Too often this demographic is overlooked since there is still a strong taboo around talking about disabilities and conditions – 60% of those affected hide their condition and discussions around mental and physical health are easily mishandled through lack of understanding. We are acutely aware that everyone’s mental health has been impacted as a result of COVID and our collective increased workload, so the need for effective support is more essential than ever.

We had a fantastic 2020 and early 2021. We’ve grown from just an idea in June to launching in Connect in October 2020, to today where we have a fully organised team made up of colleagues across 5 divisions (we hope to have champions from global support join us shortly!). We’ve worked on sharing personal stories, hosting events, and producing content to help shine a light on our community. We’re especially proud of our #ShareYourLight series that has helped colleagues to gain insight into what life can be like with a disability or condition. Check out some of the highlights here, both taking a few minutes to read:

Matt’s #ShareMyStory on living with Bipolar Disorder

An article on the difference between Fatigue and Depletion for Mental Wellness

Team Illuminate were incredibly pleased to achieve AllInforma status as a colleague led network in March 2021. We now have the opportunity to begin promoting awareness and change across Informa and we’d like to thank everyone who was able to attend our launch events. If you weren’t able to attend, you’re welcome to watch the event on demand.

For the remainder of 2021, we want to continue sharing great content to raise awareness of disabilities and conditions as well as delivering a range of Toolkits and events to support colleagues even further. This includes building and publishing a Managers' Toolkit, a collection of resources to help manage colleagues with disabilities and conditions; building and publishing a web accessibility toolkit to give guidance on how to make online content accessible; and continuing to work with various business functions to make small improvements that can have a big impact on both colleagues and customers.

The scope of Illuminate covers a wide range of issues: colleague wellbeing, HR considerations, event and content accessibility and monitoring upcoming legal requirements. There’s a lot to do, but we’re excited to get started! If you’d like to help us to do that by either sharing insight, giving guidance or joining the ops team we’d love to hear from you – please feel free to email anytime at illuminate@informa.com. If you’d like to stay in the loop please join us on Teams – you can find our group by searching for ‘Illuminate’.

Thank you for reading!

Team Illuminate

Gender diversity initiative

Goal: increase gender diversity on speaker panel and increase gender diversity of the audience (no to using female speakers as token presenters, eliminate manels)

Team members signed Fintech Parity Pledge – committing to onboarding diverse speaker faculty

Research stage – actively seek gender diverse contacts and input into the TM list, identify groups to collaborate with or projects to get aligned with

Speaker acquisition – ideal scenario 50:50 split, monitor and track the gender balance per event as part of the success metrics – minimum 40%

Women in Leadership

An Informa Connect Community part of AllInforma Balance

Mission Statement

Our shared mission for the Women in Leadership community, within Informa Connect, is to support a gender diverse workplace where women feel both valued and treated equally. We encourage women to reflect on their own goals and aspirations to develop and grow. This platform fosters leadership across all positions and enables colleagues to be empowered to advance their careers. We aim to leverage the effects of diversity to achieve a competitive business advantage.

What can you expect from being a part of the Women in Leadership community?

A welcoming community to share thoughts and experiences and celebrate women’s achievements
The opportunity to build awareness about women in leadership and the value of diversity
Networking and connecting with your Informa colleagues
Access to internal workshops, panels and presentations throughout the year
The chance to contribute and help build something from the “ground up”

Let's talk!

Gender pay gap analysis/equal pay for equal work

Mentorship opportunities at Informa

Helping women understand and articulate their value

Intersectionality, leadership and inclusion

How to work in the new norm: work-life integration

Male support and influence

Get in touch! | Visit our portal page | Join our community

For further information or how to become an member of AllInforma Nations, AllInforma Illuminate or AllInforma Balance or the other exciting and extraordinary efforts being spearheaded across the group, see the pages on Portal

AllInforma Nations

AllInforma Rainbow

AllInforma Illuminate

AllInforma Balance

Women in Leadership

AllInforma iCan