Barclays Bank initiated a Women in Procurement (WIP) team last year with the aim of advancing the gender agenda in procurement and changing the culture from within. Using feedback from focus sessions as well as market research, five objectives were set: increase the number of females at leadership level; introduce a mandatory balanced interview panel for all hiring campaigns; deliver unconscious bias training for all directors and managing directors; raise awareness of the WIP team; and open dialogue across Procurement and promote work-life balance programmes. Barclays launched The Incubator: a specific programme for high performing female talent to develop skills, widen procurement knowledge, and increase cross-procurement collaboration and leadership experience. Results against all five objectives have been impressive. There has been an increase in female applicants from 28% to 36%, 55% of all new starters are female and women in leadership roles have increased by 4%. WIP has created a framework from scratch with clear measurable objectives.

Judges’ comments: "Well planned and executed initiative, underpinned with measurement. The gender diversity agenda is very high profile and good to see the progress in what is traditionally a difficult sector for gender diversity. Good to see SMART objectives put in place to measure the effectiveness of women in procurement activities and that tangible outputs could be seen."