In collaboration with Unilever, Danone, and Fossil, Acumen is excited to host the third Beyond Dialogue Workshop as an Ecosystem Event. This meeting will focus specifically on the ways that corporations and social enterprises are working together to expand the role of women as entrepreneurs, employees, suppliers and customers in a truly inclusive economy. The workshop will bring together 100 participants representing leading global corporations, innovative social enterprises, experts and intermediaries and will highlight successful partnerships and identify opportunities to go further to unlock the social and financial opportunities that come from expanded gender-equity. Beyond Dialogue brings corporations and social enterprises together to uncover new knowledge and opportunities to partner and achieve sustainable business solutions together.
Over the last three years, Acumen has been strengthening its gender focus. More than half of people impacted by poverty are women, and social enterprises and progressive corporations alike need to integrate women and men in a truly inclusive way across their business models if they seek to solve the challenges of poverty. In 2015, Acumen published Women and Social Enterprises: How Gender Integration Can Boost Entrepreneurial Solutions to Poverty, which explored how social enterprises are engaging with and improving the lives of women and where additional opportunities for gender integration exist.
Join us for this interactive workshop, which will include a plenary panel with leading practitioners of gender inclusion, as well as variety of breakout panels and discussions groups designed to pull out lessons, stories, and example of what is working and where there are still big unknowns and gaps. Participants will come away with new insights, actionable ideas, and connections from across sectors that can be transformed into meaningful partnerships.