A short interview with Gill Gordon, Chair of the Permits Foundation at Think Women Event 2023

by Marianne Curphey | Jul 26, 2023

In this short interview, Gill Gordon examines what makes a leader successful: how well they can bring together, develop and stretch their team, set the tone, have a vision of what they want to achieve and lead by example.

The experience of international mobility stretches and grows leaders

At the Think Women event at the Institute of Directors to mark International Women’s Day delegates discussed candidly the challenges and opportunities in creating a diverse workforce. The panel debated how to develop the careers of women, why diversity, equity and inclusion needed to be viewed through an intersectional lens and how best to encourage and nurture all talent, regardless of ethnicity or gender.

Gill Gordon, chair of the Permits Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that tries to persuade governments to relax the work permit requirements for partners of mobile employees, said the key message of the day had been the importance of global mobility.

“The experience that international mobility brings, the advantages of going out and meeting completely new people in a completely different environment, and how it stretches you and challenges you,” she said.

In terms of moving the dial on equity, she said that change would not happen without effort.

“We’ve come a long way since the 1980s, but we still have quite a long way to go,” she said. “It is a question of companies keeping a focus on it because it is not something that will happen by itself. Companies have to keep succession plans for women, so they can develop, and they have to keep a very close eye on equity in terms of women’s salaries.”