International Women's Day: Designing Influence

Over the past week, I’ve found myself in several different rooms across the industry. A speaker event exploring entrepreneurship, culture and technology. A dinner table of women building new platforms and businesses. A number of gatherings marking International Women’s Day.

Different settings, but a common thread.

The most interesting conversations rarely happen by accident. They tend to emerge when someone intentionally designs the conditions for them: curating the people in the room, setting the tone and creating space for ideas to move across sectors that don’t usually intersect.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about recently because it connects to a theme I spoke about this week at IAA UK’s UPLIFT programme: the difference between impact and influence.

For much of my career I focused on impact - delivering programmes, building communities and fixing culture issues. Important work, but influence didn’t expand simply because more work was done. It expanded when I became intentional about where that work was pointing.

That distinction matters.

Impact is the result.

Influence is the multiplier.

Intention is the driver. 

When intention sits underneath the work, something shifts. The room becomes more than an event. The conversation becomes more than a moment. Over time, people begin to associate you with ideas, not just outputs.

Influence compounds.

And from a growth perspective, that matters more than many organisations realise. The conversations happening in these rooms shape reputation, trust and opportunity long before they show up in pipeline or revenue. Growth rarely begins at the point of transaction; it begins in the environments where ideas, relationships and credibility are built.

This week also offered a reminder of something equally important: influence grows when we step outside our own spheres. Being in Liverpool for the WACL Nations and Regions gathering at Everton has been a joy. There is depth of talent here, incredible energy and a strong sense of community. It’s a powerful reminder that our industry’s centre of gravity is broader than the places we tend to default to.

The question then becomes not just how we build rooms, but how we expand them.

Around International Women’s Day the conversation often turns to how businesses can show up authentically. In truth, authenticity rarely sits in a single campaign or panel discussion. It shows up in the rooms organisations build consistently, who is invited in, whose perspectives shape decisions and whose talent gets visibility.

Because influence doesn’t just grow through visibility. It grows when we create space for voices, perspectives and talent that might otherwise remain outside the conversation.

And when those rooms are designed intentionally, influence travels and growth tends to follow