From boardroom diversity to workplace inclusion: Why Aurora50 spread its wings

Aurora50 expanded its remit this year beyond gender balance in the boardroom, to look at wider equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). We introduced AIM, our accelerator for internal management to grow businesses’ pipeline of talented women from the ground up. In this speech co-founder Diana Wilde gave to a very special triple graduation ceremony for Hult International Business School in Dubai (classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022), she explains

Aurora50 was co-founded in 2020 to help grow the number of women in listed board seats in the UAE - then just 28, or 3.5 percent of all seats.

According to our latest research with the regulator, the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), 8.9 percent of all board positions on the now 115 listed companies are held by women.

That is 77 seats of the total 868 board seats. The number of women on listed boards in the UAE has more than doubled in two years. 

Enabling men to drive change

Prior to launching Aurora50 I had always worked in male-dominated environments, from the British Territorial Army to hotel investment to treasury and trade finance. My days were often spent working with men.

I wasn’t aware of the systemic issues that existed, but I was curious about what was happening and, as I talked to more and more women, I could see that many influential and aspiring ones were not progressing fast enough. More women needed to bridge the network gap.

Just like me, many men did not have the strong female networks they needed to nominate women for boards and this made them believe the pipeline was dry. We realised that enabling men to drive change would be key to us making a difference.

A tribe of believers

Aurora50 signed its first contract with its very first client, ADNOC, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Conpany, a full three days before the border closed for the Covid-19 global pandemic.

But we needed at least four more contracts to launch a viable accelerator for women on boards. With Covid, our pipeline for these contracts all but disappeared overnight. People were scared. Budgets were cut. Contracts were postponed and my dream started to evaporate.

Our small tribe of believers kept us going in those very early days. We have been blessed with support of incredible companies but really the support of incredible people.

The first Pathway20 cohort

The two years that followed were hard, but it is very hard to extinguish the will to be impactful. Not just my will to have impact, but that of our partners too.

Our business plan said we would pitch clients for six months and then launch our first Pathway20 accelerator. 

So, 11 months after we started to pitch clients, and with thanks to those early partners who supported us, referred us and inspired us to keep going, we launched our first cohort.

Nothing less than equal opportunities

Just a few months after launch, I received a call that fuelled the Aurora50 team to strive for more. It was a call from one of the women participating - she had just been informed that she would be appointed to a listed board. My eyes filled with tears during that phone call.

We had been told that we could not impact the number of women on boards, but with our partners we chose to keep believing and just six months in we had our first listed board seat. Some 89 percent of women in our accelerator now hold non-executive director seats.

I have always been surprised by how divisive the subject of women’s empowerment can be. The idea that women deserve anything less than the same opportunities as men seems to be widely disregarded by younger people, but it still remains a subject of contention for many.

Foundations laid for gender balance

In the early days of Aurora50, before a quota for women on boards was introduced in the UAE, I received a call from an economist who quizzed me for a full 30 minutes on my intentions and plans. Question after question, he dug deeper and deeper until finally he admitted he wanted to know if I had what it took to see this through. 

I had never questioned my resilience before this phone call, but he was far wiser than I, and his questioning served as a warning. We have had many wonderful days at Aurora50, but continuing when times are tough is what I am most proud of.

Those who had trodden this path before laid the foundation for us to start accelerating towards gender balance, and they had a much harder time than we do. I will forever be grateful to those men and women who started this journey before me. 

Storms not always sent to test

Life doesn't usually follow the plans you lay out for yourself. You will all experience the highs and lows of life, the best and the worst.

Your true success will be defined by how you handle both the good times and the bad times. Remember that not every storm is sent to test you. Some storms clear the path for you to see a better way forward.

Pathway20, our first accelerator, opened a new challenge for us. Some of our partners didn’t have enough women who were board-ready, for us to scale our impact.

Fostering inclusion

They came to us and asked for help building their pipelines and so we created AIM, our accelerator for internal management, and I am pleased to say that we are now also championing gender balance in executive leadership teams.

It took me a while to see that Aurora50 would need to be a company that fosters inclusion, not just gender balance, for us to really help women. 

We always knew the problem could not be fixed without the support of men but we really need to change the environment for everyone’s voice to count.