Ashurst diversity and inclusion sees introduction of new targets

International law firm Ashurst today announces that the Board, in consultation with the Executive Team, has set new diversity and inclusion targets to be achieved by financial year 2022.

The stretch targets comprise:

• 33% of the global partnership to be female - currently 24%
• 30% of legal management / leadership roles to be held by women - currently 23%, with 30% of the global Board now female
• 50% of senior business services roles to be held by women - currently 33%

Commenting, managing partner Paul Jenkins said: "Targets provide awareness and impetus for change and it is critical that we ensure sustained focus and continue to make progress. Our new target period has been reduced from five to three years for this reason and we now have a target for the whole partnership, have increased the target for females in leadership roles and introduced a gender target for business services leadership.

Since the original gender targets were set, we have seen improvement in the gender balance of promotions to partnership, with 58% of new partners in 2018 being female. We have also made progress with the proportion of women in leadership roles and are pleased that 30% of our Board is now female - 50% of the elected positions. We remain very conscious of how much more needs to be done. Identifying, supporting and developing the pipeline of all female leaders is vital for our business and setting our new diversity and inclusion targets reflects our confidence in the power of aspirational targets to further improve gender balance at the firm."

Recent gender diversity initiatives at Ashurst include:

• Global Committed To Change initiative which engages partners to make a public and proactive commitment to diversity and inclusion as a method to harness the power of inclusive leadership, with the aim that every office and practice group has at least one local C2C member.
• RISE programme launched in 2018 which brings together female senior partners from across the firm with the aim of supporting partners in their continued career development, extending partners' internal networks and gathering ideas and insight into how best to ensure our working practices enable all to succeed.
• Introduction of bystander intervention training and a calling out campaign to support all partners and staff in feeling confident to constructively call out any unacceptable language or behaviour in the workplace.
• Paul Jenkins was the first law firm leader to join the Male Champions of Change programme in Australia, which works with leaders in the business community to redefine men's role in promoting gender equality. This follows his appointment as a national Workplace Gender Equality Agency Pay Equity Ambassador.
• The firm continues to produce an annual gender metrics report for the Board looking in detail at a wide range of measures of female progression.