Celebrating the Square Mile’s most inspiring women.

About Power 100 Women

If one thing was made clear by “heels-gate” – the fiasco caused last week after a young receptionist was sent home from her first day of work because she refused to don a pair of stilettos – it was that despite our best efforts, in some pockets of the City, old-fashioned attitudes persist.

But during our Power 100 breakfast event yesterday, there was a consensus among those on the panel. While we have, for the large part, dispensed with overt sexism, we’re left with unconscious bias. So the next challenge for leaders is dispensing with those subconscious decisions to hire and promote those with the same background.

The panel, which included RSM chief executive Jean Stephens, Tech City chief of staff Caroline Makepeace, A Very Good Company founder Natalie Campbell and Virgin Money chief executive Jayne-Anne Gadhia, agreed: the only way to beat dated views of women’s roles is to “be the best you”. Or, as Campbell put it: “do what you damn well please”.

From bosses to millennials, from property to accountancy, we’ve put together the Power 100 to highlight the talkers, the thinkers, the women influencing policy and changing the way the City thinks. In other words, these are the women in the City who are beating that unconscious bias the best way they can: doing what they damn well please – and doing it well.