We are proud to be partners with the amazing BIMA, LeapFrog Labs and FMO Entrepreneurial Development Bank, to bring to life an inspiring global programme of female empowerment in developing countries. BIMA aim to change the way women are able to contribute and participate in the workplace in countries as far afield as Paraguay and Fiji, by way of Africa, India and more.
Leapfrog (ranked at number 5 in the Fortune’s “Change the World” list) and FMO Bank have played a key role in BIMA’s amazing story – and the future of the RUN programme which we are partnering and supporting.
The Summit in London in the first week of July 2018 has just closed - facilitated and designed by Lacerta Consultants Caryn Vanstone and Niel Stander, with brilliant facilitation from Bruno Dalbiez, Barbara Banda, Delfina Zagarzazú, Alex Steele and Susanne Pecher. The 3 days were truly inspiring, hearing stories from women about when and how they find their strength and power, to deliver real benefits for their organisation and community. The summit introduced them to a wide range of empowering and dialogic leadership skills – enabling them to extend their influence while remaining “safe”, connected change agents inside sometimes difficult cultural conditions.
BIMA brought in a great intake of new Female Ambassadors for their Global RUN programme this year, bringing fresh ideas and new energy to what is an already exciting and expanding programme, created 2 years ago by inspiring deputy CEO Mathilda Ström. As they move forward with growing the influence of RUN, the Ambassadors are encouraged to build a profile for themselves within other organisations in their markets too, who are also keen to learn from what BIMA are doing in to empower women and develop their leadership skills.
Lacerta Consulting is proud to now be part of the BIMA RUN family – working to support, design and facilitate key events and processes that enable BIMA to deliver its challenging goals:
- to encourage and nurture female talent and create a gender-friendly environment for women to thrive
- to instil confidence in women and give them the tools they need to climb up the ladder
- to engage and educate men and women on their conscious or unconscious gender biases so that they can work better as a team
- and through supporting these local “ambassadors” in their projects, to deliver local mentoring, coaching, and real-time womens’ health, financial and empowerment projects in their local economies, towns and villages, and through reaching out to other businesses operating in their countries.
Leapfrog, a key investor in BIMA previously, works across these regions and they are keen to understand how they can replicate the success of the RUN Programme in their portfolio companies. In the second half of the year, they will be looking for their RUN Female Ambassadors to work with some of these organisations to take RUN from an internal initiative to something which truly has the power to influence society’s attitudes towards women and female leaders.
If they are to have sustainable success, RUN can’t be about creating special circumstances for women to succeed. It needs a basis on which to build mutual respect through understanding and tolerance, ensuring that everyone is treated fairly, regardless of their gender or other characteristics. By demonstrating their leadership capability, the Female Ambassadors will change perceptions and inspire women and other under-represented groups to follow in their footsteps. To that end, BIMA will also be making great efforts to promote inclusivity and education, thereby creating a learning environment where everyone benefits from the programme’s activities and is enabled to realise their potential.
Global HR, local HR teams and RUN mentors, with the support and leadership of Global Head of Human Resources, Craig Fergusson, are all there to support the initiative but it’ll be down to the Female Ambassadors to take the lead and make RUN a success. They will need to nurture both internal AND external programme activities to grow and support not only their personal objectives, but also to enable other women to develop and succeed, positively impacting the lives of all those around them. Individually they can achieve personal success, together in RUN they can achieve a real and lasting change for others too.
We will continue to support them over the year ahead – and can’t wait to hear more stories about how they are putting their new skills and confidence into action.
We love working on purpose-driven, social programmes – contact us if you have something you think you can get help with.
Smruti, India
"Outside of work, the RUN Programme has helped me a lot. There have been many changes that have happened in my lifestyle. I had a session from my mentor on work life balance, which made a big difference in my day to day life. I used to go back home and urgently open my laptop and start working. I spoke to my mentor about equally dividing my time to family, friends, yourself and work. I started implementing this and I was really happy. I started getting happier because of this. If I am happy in each of the areas, it is only then that I can perform well in everything. RUN has made a big difference in life.”
Shreya, Bangladesh
“In Bangladesh we have a lot of women in the workforce but when it comes to assuming leadership roles or management roles there are not many women out there. I feel that this programme and especially having the RUN mentors in the Bangladesh team will help this workforce to look up to something. I personally am looking to empower women with decision making roles and not just relying on execution roles”
“The RUN programme is empowering, it’s inspiring and I think it’s the much needed support from the top management of the organisation”
Marian, Ghana
“We need women’s leaders at BIMA because we need to develop personal and professional skills. We need to inspire women to achieve more and we need to empower women to go higher and attain more leadership roles.”