Clifford Chance

The Women's Forum for the Economy & Society (WEFCOS) is a leading platform featuring women’s voices, views and values on major social and economic issues. The partnership, which was first signed in November 2019, underscores the firm's commitment to showcasing the talent and creativity of women while fostering international cooperation.

Clifford Chance is reaffirming its commitment to WEFCOS by speaking at the G20 meeting being held in Italy from 17-19 October, and again at the Global Forum Meeting, from 15-19 November. Matthew Layton, Global Managing Partner, will attend the G20 meeting with a delegation of 12 Clifford Chance colleagues and clients and will speak on a panel titled 'Fixing The Leaky Pipeline: The Champions of Women's Leadership' on Tuesday 19 October. Clifford Chance will also attend the Global Forum as virtual attendees and Charles Adams, Regional Managing Partner for Continental Europe, will be speaking on the panel titled 'Recovering purpose for business' on Friday 19 November.

Clifford Chance also continues its role as an insight partner to the #Women4Business Daring Circle, an innovative cross-industry working group that brings together a network of partners to promote and accelerate diversity in business and supply chains at a global level. New for 2021 is our involvement in the #Women4AI Daring Circle, led by Partner Kate Scott.

Across 2020-2021 the firm supported the development of the Daring Circle's 'Toolkit for Action', a set of materials designed to advance the development and implementation of best practices for supplier diversity and inclusive sourcing, by drafting the legal framework. The framework outlines the EU legal framework and gives organisations, who want to become more gender inclusive by taking on ‘women-led’ suppliers, practical guidance to spot red flags and understand basic principles of what might be considered positive discrimination or affirmative action. The legal work that Katrin Schallenberg, Marianne Pezant and Amelie Lavenir undertook with the Women4Business Daring Circle for the Inclusive Sourcing Report was published and presented to G7 leaders.

At Clifford Chance, we believe that we're all the most effective campaigners for change in our own space. What's special about our partnership with the Women's Forum is that it offers the opportunity for people at all levels of our firm to get involved and bring many of our specialist skills to the table. By combining these rich skills with the expertise of others in the Daring Circles, we're laying the most effective ground work for change at a government level and beyond, and we're ambitious about what we can achieve this way - working together for a better, more successful future for all.

Clifford Chance is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion, recently winning Outstanding Diversity and Inclusion Practices in Procurement Team Award at the CIPS Excellence in Procurement Awards 2020. The award demonstrates the Firm's recognition of the importance of diversity and inclusion within the firm, as well as the wider procurement profession and supply chain.