Everyone Has a Part to Play: Empowerment and Allyship for International Women’s Day

Facilitated by Alex Knight MBE FIMechE & Jemima Wade

Empowering women at work is not just the right thing to do. It delivers measurable impact for individuals, teams and organisations. Evidence consistently shows that when allyship is active and intentional, women are more likely to stay, progress and thrive.

This International Women’s Day, we’re focusing on what empowerment and allyship actually look like in practice, and how everyone has a role to play.

What to expect

Jemima’s session: What empowerment really looks like

Jemima will explore what genuine empowerment means beyond policies and pledges. Drawing on her experience at Heineken, she will share how allyship is built into everyday behaviours, the mindset shifts that have made a real difference, and what senior leaders and men in particular need to understand if allyship is going to move from intention to impact.

Alex Knight: Visibility, role models and changing systems

Alex will share the impact of STEMAZING and why representation and role models matter so deeply. She’ll explore how visibility empowers women individually while also challenging and reshaping systems, and share a real story that brings the importance of allyship and representation to life.

Mini panel discussion: Allyship that works

In a practical panel conversation, we’ll unpack the biggest misconceptions about allyship, highlight small actions that can have a big impact, and focus on what attendees can realistically start doing tomorrow. This session is designed to move the conversation from awareness to action.

Live Q&A

We’ll close with a live Q&A, giving attendees the opportunity to ask questions, reflect on their own role, and leave with clear, practical takeaways.

Who should attend

This webinar is for anyone who wants to better understand how empowerment and allyship work in real workplaces, including leaders, managers, men who want to be effective allies, and anyone passionate about creating more inclusive environments.

Join us this International Women’s Day to explore how small, intentional actions can create lasting change, and how everyone truly does have a part to play.

About the facilitators 

Alex Knight MBE FIMechE
Founder, STEMAZING 

Alex is a multi-award-winning Engineer and Entrepreneur. After a career of almost 20 years in Industry working in engineering consultancy and innovation, she founded STEMAZING – a social enterprise dedicated to inspiration and inclusion in STEM. 

Through STEMAZING Alex leads several not-for-profit initiatives to empower women in STEM and link this to inspiring our future generations of innovators and problem-solvers. In the last 5 years STEMAZING has trained over 700 women in STEM globally on their Inspiration Academy programme to level-up as visible role models and they have collectively delivered over 190,000 STEMAZINGKids engagements for 7 – 9-year-olds in areas of deprivation.

Alex is also Mentor, Trainer, Visiting Professor and TEDx speaker. Her TEDx Talk – “Why Courage, Visibility and Sex Matter in Engineering” has been viewed over 350,000 times on the TED YouTube Channel. She is a regular keynote speaker at events and schools and has featured on engineering TV shows on Channel 5, Prime and CuriosityStream.

In 2026 Alex was recognised in the King’s New Year Honours List with an MBE for Services to Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering. In 2025 Alex was awarded the prestigious Rooke Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering for promotion of engineering to the public and also won the National Diversity Award for being a positive role model for gender diversity. In 2023 Alex was named as one of the top Inspirational Businesswomen in STEM at the House of Lords.

Jemima Wade
Head of Togetherness & Wellbeing @HEINEKEN UK

Meet Jem, a trailblazing voice in inclusion for FMCG.

In addition to her HUK role she serves on the UK Steering Committee of D&I in Grocery, after previously Chairing LEAD – the industry’s largest UK & Europe-wide gender equity body – whilst leading EDI for PepsiCo Europe.

Jem is fiercely committed to developing future talent, mentoring early-career women and championing cultures where care is key and everyone can thrive. Her leadership combines strategic clarity with decisive action, delivering measurable progress on gender parity, pay equity and community impact. Renowned for her storytelling and ability to de-bias systems at scale, she designs and delivers programmes that create conversation and impact.

A regular speaker (try and get her off the mic!) and advocate, Jem’s thought leadership – recognised by the European Diversity Awards – is focused on removing barriers to togetherness. As someone who identifies as a women (she/her), alongside being a parent, neurodiverse and bi-sexual – she sees her work and the world through many lens and uses lived experience to drive change.