Spark Network

SPARK provides a supportive forum for women across DAS UK to challenge gender bias and create a more inclusive culture.

It works closely with the senior team and other diversity networks to address issues affecting women and to deliver initiatives and activities aimed at helping them to develop their skills and capabilities, enabling them to succeed in their own way.

Our mission is to support and empower women at all levels within our business to achieve success in their own way, providing them with opportunities to learn and develop in a way that is right for them. Our exec sponsor is Matt Allam, the Director of Technology, Data & Strategic Change and we aim to:

• Be inclusive, working closely with other diversity networks in the business;
• Help women build confidence;
• Remove barriers to personal and professional development;
• Offer opportunities to network and share ideas;
• Be a voice for women, raising issues and concerns;
• Celebrate success.

Women in Law Pledge

We are proud signatories to the Women in Finance and Women in Law Pledge created by The Law Society, the Bar Council of England and Wales and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX).

The pledge expects firms to set high level targets to make a difference for gender equality either within their organisation, or as an advocate and champion for change.

‘Women in Law’ 3 year action plan

We are really pleased to have submitted our three year action plan with key focus areas to improve gender diversity within DAS Law.

Recruitment

Career development

Support for women

Women in Finance Charter

The Women in Finance Charter is owned by HM Treasury and commits firms to supporting the progression of women into senior roles in the financial services sector by focusing on the executive pipeline and the mid-tier level; each firm should set its own targets and implement the right strategy for their organisation.

It requires firms to publicly report on progress to deliver against these internal targets to support the transparency and accountability needed to drive change.

We aim to achieve gender balance through the following initiatives and activities:

• Focusing on recruitment techniques that drive greater diversity
• Actively embedding new flexible working policies
• Supporting women in their progression through leadership and mentoring programmes
• Including gender balance related targets within Senior Manager’s personal objectives
• Reinforcing expectations that all leaders are responsible for creating a culture of inclusion.

We’ve signed up the Women in Law Pledge and the Women in Finance Charter to support our goal of gender equality in our leadership population. Making these promises gives us the opportunity to benchmark our progress, learn from other signatories, and drive the change that we want to see.

We’ve started to develop our action plans using lots of different insights from the business, and have doubled down on our commitment to make DAS UK a place where everyone has the same opportunities to progress.

2023 Update

When we signed up to the Charter in March 2021, we had 32.25% female representation in senior management (defined as Exco-1). As of May 2023 we have 40% female representation in senior management. We believe we are on track to meet our Charter target of 50% by our deadline of 2025.

“DAS UK has made pleasing progress over the last two years and it is positive to see the number of women in senior management roles at 40%. Whilst continued focus is needed to ensure that we achieve our target of 50% by the end of 2025, I remain optimistic that the organisation will achieve its goal.”
Matthew Allam, Director of Technology, Data & Strategic Change & Executive Sponsor of Spark