BLOG: IWD 2025 – Claire

Claire Marshall is Chair of the Groundwork UK Committee, co-opted member of Groundwork’s Federation Board, and Chief Executive Officer for another charity supporting disabled and autistic children and their families.

Throughout these roles Claire strives to create an environment where everyone can contribute and flourish regardless of sex, belief, or disability.

Claire said: “An important part of my role is making sure that anyone who doesn’t have a voice, whether it’s because they’re a woman or because of some other factor like being neurodiverse, are given opportunities. We are pulling people through on the basis of talent and the ability to learn and make a contribution. This isn’t just about me, but also my leadership team and the team below that – people who are seeing talent and nurturing it.

“The key to an equal workplace lies on the basis of skill, not sex. This can be achieved by creating a right way to build people’s confidence, on an interpersonal level or addressing a skills gap. Enabling people to work across an organisation can also help; I’m a big fan of projects where people can build their profile because they’re working with different disciplines.

“I think it’s really important to have flexible working environments. Often people feel they can’t build their career if they’re planning on having families, for instance. I’ve seen women’s roles and careers being derailed by inflexibility around parenthood.

“International Women’s Day is a unifying force. It’s about working with all sexes to celebrate women and their achievements and make sure that equality is as we would wish it to be.

Having personally experienced an awful lot of exclusion and sexism over the years, it is important to bring unconscious bias out into the light and address it. Having the courage to have those conversations can be very difficult but talking about the unintended consequences of certain behaviours or environments and learning from it is really important.

“What I am heartened by is that the next generation seem to be so much more direct and confident and clear about what they want. I think if we can meet in the middle, those of us who clear a path and those of you who are younger with these bigger expectations, there’s nothing we can’t do.

“My advice to younger women would be to find supportive people, whether it’s through education, mentorship or just being in a supportive organisation or team that can help build your experience. Doing what you love and having people who believe in you is really important.”