The Sloane Club’s Post

Wow - what a week we’ve had! In celebration of #internationalwomensday the Debate Mate team has been thrilled to host a total of 4 events, in partnership with some fantastic organisations, tackling important questions surrounding gender equality. Here’s a rundown… 1️⃣ On Tuesday, we hosted a breakfast in partnership with global members club Adoreum Partners, sponsored by The Sloane Club. We ran a thought-provoking debate on whether AI, often hailed for innovation, perpetuates or challenges biases against women. Two of our older students, Wren & Olivia, along with Debate Mate’s Esther Mark and Elissa Abbara did a fantastic job winning over the room. Thank you to Marcus Watson, Rosalie Deighton, Courteney Levy-Collins and Daisy Hill for organising such a wonderful event and to Hamish Gordon Lennox and Amelia Mist for a great collaboration. 2️⃣ On Wednesday, we ran a show debate with Aquis Stock Exchange , tackling the topic of gender quotas and their impact on diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Included on the panel was Aquis CEO Alastair and board member Ruth as well as 2 students from The Sydney Russell School, one of the schools on our core programme. 3️⃣ On Thursday, we ran a special International Women’s Day edition of our monthly Debate Mate Breakfast, hosted at the The Ivy Soho Brasserie. Students from Elmhurst Primary School, alongside Esther and Elissa again, debated the motion: “International Women's Day does more harm than good”. Guests were from a fantastic cross-section of industries, including Sony Music Entertainment, PIMCO, Bank of America, Virgin Money, Deloitte, Virgin Unite, Janus Henderson Investors Informa, BDO and TED Conferences. 4️⃣ We were also thrilled to run an event in collaboration with Bloom Network, a professional network for women in communications, hosted at The Trade Desk. We were blown away by the insightful discussions initiated by the motion: “Women cannot have it all”. Thanks to Maeve Devi Carroll and Esther Mark for hosting, our brilliant speakers Jane Loring, Simone Payne - Powell (She/Her) Chartered MCIPD, MCMI, Ryan Afshar and our three amazing debaters, Emmanuel Areoye, Ella Cox and Rushma Khan. Thank you too to Elizabeth Anyaegbuna for inviting us to take part in such a great event. On behalf of the whole team, it has been an honour to facilitate such inspiring conversations surrounding gender equality this past week. Whilst International Women’s Day is a moment to celebrate the wins we’ve made so far, we hope to have opened some important dialogues about the distance still left to go. Stay tuned for more International Women’s Day content throughout this month…👭 Margaret McCabe Scarlett McCabe Jessica Rolfe-Dix Lisa Chadwick