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Leadership Summit & Awards 2023
Breaking Barriers
Now in its 13th year, the Forward Ladies Leadership Summit and Awards honours the impact of female leadership, innovation and entrepreneurism in business.
We continue to use our platform to showcase the achievements of women breaking barriers across the public and private sectors, giving them the recognition and visibility, they need to inspire the next generation of leaders. These women are changing lives and transforming the UK’s businesses, communities, and industries.
They are the audacious ones, the innovative transformational female leaders – the game changers – the unstoppable ones.
As we celebrate another International Women’s Day, we are excited to launch The Forward Ladies Leadership Summit and Awards to identify and recognize the women breaking barriers. Our theme for this year is Breaking Barriers.
Key Dates
Nominations and entries open
Wednesday 8th March 2023 – International Women’s Day
Last day to enter
Friday 8th September 2023
Shortlist announced
Tuesday 25th September 2023
LIVE judging day
Thursday 5th October 2023
Leadership Summit & Awards
Friday 24th November 2023 – London
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last year's
SUMMIT & AWARDS
With last year’s theme being “Unstoppable Women”, we celebrated women who are showing exceptional leadership abilities in their teams, challenging and breaking glass ceilings and uplifting communities across the entire UK and globe. These women are changing the world with their craft, talents, creativity, eloquence, leadership and impacting generations all around the world.
The FL Leadership and Summit Awards brought together women from all fields, organizations, industries and backgrounds to discuss their journeys and careers and celebrate their exceptional leadership. We brought together carefully curated expert panels, as well as industry-leading women to talk about their experiences as neuro-divergent women in the workplace and how the next generation can prepare to be unstoppable.
Award
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Access the 2022 Replays
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Start your 14-day FREE membership trial today, then pay as little as £14.99 per month for ongoing leadership support.
Previous
SPEAKERS
Each year we assemble a wide variety of knowledgeable speakers from many different backgrounds to speak on topics important to us. This variety allows us to showcase different viewpoints on important subjects, and look at them in a way we may not have considered before. Below are just some of the speakers from the event.








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“The impact of the awards has been huge. This achievement has shone a spotlight on my career and inspired others. More importantly, the awards have enabled me to promote women’s causes and to encourage women to consider all possibilities.”
Lara Oyesanya
Klarna Bank
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“I absolutely love the FL awards. I remember the first time I attended a few years ago and entering the room as the speaker – I couldn’t believe the buzz and the energy. But then again it’s no surprise that so many high achieving women in one room could create an unbelievably high octane, inspiring atmosphere. Every year it gets better and better.”
Sahar Hashemi
Founder Coffee Republic
Charity
Partner
We are honoured to announce that our charity partner for our Leadership Summit and Awards 2023 is Ella’s. Ella’s is a London-based organisation working with women who have survived trafficking and sexual exploitation. They exist to address dangerous gaps in the system and provide survivors of trafficking and exploitation with a real chance to recover and stay free.
They opened their first safe house in 2016 and became an independent charity in 2020.