We wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pride by looking through the lens of intersectionality. The term intersectionality was coined in 1989 by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics “intersect” with one another and overlap.

To explore its importance in the context of Pride celebrations I was joined by two fantastic panellists Polly Shute, Head of Corporate Partnerships at Pink News and Co-Founder of Out and About and Geoffrey Williams, Vice President and Global Head Diversity Equity & Inclusion for Burberry.

During our discussion we explore in more detail the concept of intersectionality and Polly and Geoffrey very generously share many of their own lived experiences. We also discuss what organisations can do to understand the evolution of inclusion and the role intersectionality plays and what they can do to keep ahead of the curve.

Welcome to this podcast to mark Mental Health Awareness Week

My name is Joanna Aunon and I am a director at WiHTL and Diversity in Retail and for those of you who don’t know us already, we exist to support organisations to create inclusive cultures where anyone can thrive and reach their full potential. We have a mission to positively impact 6 million people from across both the HTL and Retail sectors by 2025.

In October 2021 we partnered with Thrive, a leading mental healthcare service for organisations to launch a seminal piece of research that looked to determine whether there is a direct link between inclusion in the workplace and mental health positivity across HTL and Retail industries. We felt this study was especially important due to the wellbeing and mental health impact of the pandemic particularly across all of these sectors.

And the results are fascinating, showing a proven link that inclusion actively drives positive mental health.

In this podcast I’m joined by Andres Foncesca, CEO and Co-founder and Kerri Bailey, Research Scientist at Thrive to discuss the results in more detail. In our conversation we explore the link between an inclusive working environment and positive mental health, how it makes business sense to focus on inclusion and what practical steps organisations can take to make meaningful change.

I hope you find our conversation interesting and enlightening.

Thank you for listening and I hope you find our conversation interesting and enlightening and if you are interested in the work we do at WiHTL and Diversity in Retail and would like to find out more please visit our website www.wihtl.com and www. diversityinretail.com or follow us on LinkedIn