Tarinee Pandey, Chief People Officer, Puma Property Finance | March 2025

Last week as I was preparing to host our annual International Women’s Day event, I was reflecting on the UN’s theme for this year – “For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment”. While it would be wonderful to think that we’re even close to attaining this, the reality feels bleaker than ever in the current environment.

The last 12 months have been full of staggering reminders both nationally and internationally of what the landscape can look like for women and it’s not good. From the Gisèle Pelicot trial to the Taliban banning windows in residential buildings so women can’t be seen, to the staggering data demonstrating an increase in domestic violence against women and rape convictions being at an increasingly unacceptable level, the present looks and feels more depressing than ever. This is against the backdrop of many global organisations publicly discarding D,E&I policies and strategies without real explanation or apology.

While we’re all sadly very used to digesting these headlines, it’s easy to become desensitised to them and to feel like there is very little we can do to achieve change when the challenge feels so insurmountable.

Notwithstanding the enormity of the task ahead, we have to believe that there is, at least, the ability to drive change in the places we work. That’s why at Puma we believe that listening, sharing our lived experiences and not being afraid of the difficult conversations is integral for change and our event last week was no exception. In a packed room of our colleagues and trusted partners, I hosted a panel of exceptional women who have all achieved phenomenal success in their careers but have also faced daily challenges to make this work alongside managing their own personal wellbeing.

Our panel have experienced very different paths in their chosen careers and work in a variety of sectors but throughout our discussion they highlighted so many themes which were universal to not only their experiences but those of the other speakers (and judging by the nods in the room, many of our audience as well).

We’ve got a long way to go 

In discussing this year’s theme of achieving rights, equality and empowerment for all women and girls, our speakers overwhelmingly highlighted that while there are many frameworks in place to help make this a reality, we are still so far away from achieving it. Crucially so many women (even in the relatively privileged positions of the panel) don’t feel this day by day. But we also need to celebrate the wins and recognise that through change we can achieve more – with McKinsey research highlighting that companies in the top 25% for gender diversity are 27% more likely to outperform their national industry average in terms of profitability.

‘Be the woman you needed as a girl’

This is one of my favourite sayings and a great way to step back and both acknowledge how far we’ve come but also reflect on how much is ingrained in us as children and the expectations that society puts on us as women. Each of our panellists highlighted something personal to them but overwhelmingly this focused on acknowledging that actually we don’t need to be all things to everyone, it’s OK to be strong (rather than conforming to female stereotypes) and that the constant need to achieve perfection is not helpful and can create burnout if we don’t put appropriate boundaries in place. Crucially while we’re killing ourselves trying to achieve all these things, no one really knows what they’re doing, and we should all remember that.

But what about the men in the room? It is my deep-seated belief that for cultural change to be long-lasting, everyone (including men) needs to be part of the conversation and solution. So, I’m really proud that over a third of the attendees at our event last week were men, it was great to acknowledge that we have so many allies, we just need to invite them in!

While our event highlighted how much there is still so much to be done, there was a real sense of optimism in the room – we’re in it together and we can all play our part in disrupting the system.