Clifford Chance

During the financial year ended 30 April 2024, we have taken great strides in building a culture of inclusivity across the firm. An example of that is the expansion of our global affinity networks in India.

Accelerate and Arcus provide women and LGBTQ+ colleagues with guidance and support through firm-wide networks that promote equality of opportunity.

The networks were launched in Delhi and Hyderabad in late 2023, after being established in other offices across our regions.

During and since their launch, more than 350 people have attended our Accelerate events and 300 attended our Arcus events in India in FY24. Both networks have helped create opportunities to open conversations in our India offices on topics that are not often openly discussed there.

One of the main things Arcus did was to bring in speakers from the LGBTQ+ community to share their stories with colleagues. This helped to encourage and spark conversations about inclusion at work, which contributed to significant engagement with Arcus.

Accelerate has also helped to support and encourage inclusivity since its launch. It too organised a series of events where colleagues and external guests shared real-life experiences and perspectives. To coincide with the firm's global campaign around International Women's Day, the network published stories from local leaders about the challenges they faced in their working lives and how they overcame them.

While still new, both groups are building on their initial success by setting goals for continuing to raise awareness and engagement. In a relatively short time, they have demonstrated how invaluable it is to support colleagues so that they feel comfortable talking about these issues, which is an important step towards making changes that positively embed an inclusive culture within the firm. The groups also have the support of senior leaders in India, which helps to nurture a culture of inclusivity where colleagues feel more at ease.

Our growing global and global network of affinity and faith groups create communities for colleagues where they can share similar experience and learn from one another. The groups raise awareness of, and celebrate, the many diversities within the firm.

They include our Buddhist, Christian, Hindy, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh & Jain networks, and:

•  Accelerate>>> our gender parity network
•  Enable our disability and neurodiverse condition network
•  Arcus our LGBT+ network
•  REACH our race equality and cultural heritage network
•  RISE our social mobility network
•  CliffVets/Armed Forces our forces network