In addition to her role as the Global Head of the Employment, Labour and Pensions legal practice, Diane is the firm’s first Gender Champion and the Diversity and Inclusion sponsor across Eversheds Sutherland’s international business.  She is working to increase diversity in all areas and to drive change and embed a culture where women have opportunities to progress their careers. Last year, she spearheaded the launch of the firm’s new Development Plus programme, which invited 130 female participants from countries across five continents to join four sessions across the year designed to aid their career progression, with some excellent feedback and outputs. As leader of the Gender Network, Diane has co-ordinated focused activity around career and skills development, flexible working, raising awareness of parental leave, tackling unconscious bias, providing access to role models and personally worked to mentor others and supported colleagues to act as champions of change. Externally, Diane has worked on an initiative in the further education sector to increase the number of female college governors across England. She has supported the women’s development programme network at a major financial institution for a number of years, and as part of that programme worked with around 40 talented women in their business group. She has championed equality, diversity and inclusion issues, with a focus on gender diversity for many years, by speaking at events, including the Women’s Leadership Network.