“What we’ve tried to do, as a committee, is grow the festival with help from all our volunteers across our companies across the world,” she said. “And in 2016, Willis Towers Watson was involved in five events outside of London, and this year we’ve got over 25 speakers and volunteers in almost every country in which the festival is operating. And that doesn’t just show our involvement but also how Dive In has grown exponentially over the last few years. And it’s so exciting [to be part] of this festival where insurance companies are leading the way in terms of collaboration and organisations working together.”
There are so many exciting talks and events taking place, Denby said, that she wishes she could divide herself into multiple directions and attend more.
“Over the last kind of five or six months, there has never been a more important time for inclusion,” she said. “And so I think it’ll be really interesting to see people’s different perspectives, about what we’ve done well in this time and what we’ve learned from this time, as well as how we can embed some of the things that have gone well into our new normal.”
Since she first became involved with Dive In, Denby has seen how the business has expanded to tackle a much deeper variety of issues head-on. Often in the past, a lot of events were about the business case for D&I and people engagement but now there is so much more on the agenda, from racism in the workplace to intersectionality to the question of privilege. The focus of the festival is very keenly set on learning and impact, and what you will do differently after you walk away from the event.
Only last year, she said, she wondered how the festival would ever be topped but since March, everybody involved has pivoted so quickly to move this to a virtual environment and the number of people signing up is so much larger now that there is no worry about meeting rooms, or travel arrangements, or capacity.
“Really,” she said, “I don’t know how we’re going to top it next year!”
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