3 min read

The Last Institution Standing?

Jun 22, 2026 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

At the end of this month, Working Families will close after 47 years helping working parents navigate the realities of combining work and family life. The charity will shut its doors with a voice that was influential and demand for its services stronger than it had ever been. The reason for the closure is the lack of funding to sustain its work. The news comes as The City Women Network – one of the longest standing women’s networks in the UK – also plans to wind up. Together they join AllBright...

3 min read

When Care Becomes a Career Filter

May 21, 2026 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

For a period, there was broad agreement in the corporate world that supporting working parents made sense commercially and competitively. A decade where talent-hungry employers jockeyed to attract the best people by offering family-friendly benefits was evidence that if the argument wasn't entirely won, it was well appreciated by organisations who wanted to recruit and retain the best. In the past few years we have travelled a long way. Employers of choice are announcing cuts to the package of...

3 min read

Your CEO Has Left The Building

Apr 30, 2026 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

Earlier this month Meta announced that it is building an AI version of its CEO Mark Zuckerberg. His digital twin is being trained on his tone, mannerisms and thinking on company strategy, with the aim of interacting with employees and helping them feel more connected to the CEO. Shortly after, reports emerged that Meta is planning to cut some 10 percent of its workforce. The juxtaposition - automating connection while reducing headcount - is hard to ignore. But Meta is not alone. Gartner has...

2 min read

Whose Lives Matter?

Mar 27, 2026 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

I've been thinking about three very different things recently: Gisèle Pélicot’s memoir, an event with our charity partner, the Rosa Foundation, and the ongoing fall out from the Epstein files. What connects them all in my mind is an uncomfortable question about power: who gets protection and who has to fight for it. Pélicot’s account is an undeniably hard read. Aside from her courage, what strikes me most is her determination for her story to be heard, despite the personal cost. Rather than...

4 min read

The Metric That Would Close the Gender Pay Gap

Mar 5, 2026 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

It’s reporting season: the time of year when companies release their achievements and publicise their pledges. This year’s backdrop could hardly be more uncomfortable. Across parts of the economy, the gender pay gap is no longer closing and, in some sectors, it is widening, according to recent analysis from the TUC, Glassdoor and the FTSE Women Leaders Review. Ironically even industries that vowed to disrupt the status quo like challenger Fintech have, given time duplicated most of what they...

3 min read

Is DEI worth fighting for?

Feb 27, 2026 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

One year on since the US pushback against DEI started in earnest, we're seeing a sharp divergence in who remains committed. Just last week, Goldman Sachs announced it is dropping certain DEI criteria in board selection, while Colgate-Palmolive has said it wants to keep a DEI-led approach. Who's making the right choice? As business decisions that shape future talent are consistently reduced to pro- or anti-DEI stories, it becomes nearly impossible to discuss the question properly. What we really...

3 min read

Changing who gets ahead: welcome to your role

Feb 3, 2026 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

For many people, an invitation to lunch with a manager, a networking event after work or an offer of coaching are part of the unremarkable furniture of getting on at work. They are easy to accept, navigate and move on from. As signals of belonging and investment, they make you feel valued. For others these questions land completely differently, provoking anxiety and uncertainty: what if I can’t afford lunch? What am I supposed to do at a networking event? Do they mean I’m not very good at my...

4 min read

How to handle the playground bully

Jan 19, 2026 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

For most people, a scrape with the playground bully is a formative experience. Mine happened when I stepped in to stop the biggest boy in the class picking on one of the girls who was least able - or least likely- to stand up for herself. He threw a chair leg at me. I was taken aside afterwards by the teacher and offered a police escort home "for my own safety". There was no mention of dealing with the system that allowed a known bully to carry on as before. That stayed with me. It feels as...

2 min read

Don't Look Back in Anger

Dec 22, 2025 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

As 2025 draws to a close, it's hard to miss how conversations about fairness, equity and opportunity have become more charged than ever. What were once broadly shared goals or ideas are now often framed as contested territory. Instead of debate we have dogma, false binaries and culture-war positions that leave many feeling either defensive, silenced or exhausted. In many cases all three. Beneath the noise and away from the heat, something else remains true. The loudest voices, whether those...

3 min read

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

Dec 15, 2025 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

This week's Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey and Lean In offers a sharp and timely correction to the emerging narrative about gender equity. After a decade of steady progress, the scorecard shows women's advancement has stalled. For the first time, an ambition gap has opened between women and men, widest at entry level. Sponsorship has declined, fewer companies prioritise progression, and early-career women get less access to the AI tools and stretch assignments that build leaders....

3 min read

Rewire, Not Retire

Oct 24, 2025 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

Last week, a friend mentioned that the professional services firm she works in has a mandatory retirement at 60 for partners. For many in consulting, it’s a finish line which is met with some relief, given the intensity of getting there. The conversation stuck with me, not just because at 60 and as someone who very much wants to continue working, she is one of the many people of that age who have another two decades of productive life ahead of them, maybe more. But when she walks out of the...

3 min read

Taming AI needs DEI

Oct 3, 2025 by Geraldine Gallacher | Founder

For much of 2025, it has seemed as though leaders have taken potshots at DEI with full impunity. Businesses have walked back public commitments to inclusion and initiatives aimed at improving equity, repudiating them loudly, with little apparent concern about the ultimate impact of their words and actions. A hostile climate is ultimately uncomfortable for everyone who has to live in it. And so it’s unsurprising to see the signs that the chickens may be coming home to roost in recent weeks for...