BVN Stories, Events — March 16, 2025
IWD 2025: March Forward
To mark International Women's Day, we came together to celebrate, reflect and renew our commitment to accelerating progress towards gender equality.
Thank you to our hosts Lisa and Isabella, and our panellists Mariangela, Carole, Michelle, Chloe, Claire, Rebecca, Ingrid, Jess, Maria, Elynda and Hannah.
We gathered to listen to the diverse women of BVN participate in an open and honest conversation across our Sydney and Brisbane Studios. It was a celebration of their achievements and a platform to share and learn from their experiences across all stages of their architecture, design and technology careers.
Maria Guardala reminded our audience — men and women — about the influential nature of establishing a support ecosystem. "It's important to understand that the network you need to support you doesn't just come to you," says Maria. "You must actively seek it by approaching people and building it over time and through connections."
Recognising the essential role of network-building, especially for young women, Claire Oh established The Vine — an event program that supports students and recent graduates in connecting with women in the industry. She hopes programs like these will ensure young women see a balanced view of leadership.
For the women of BVN, gender parity looks and feels differently. Michelle Mo believes that “gender parity is about having choice, real choice”. For Jess Baisley , it's the freedom of self-expression. “It's getting to express myself as a woman in my most important roles in both my career and at home,” says Jess.
Gender parity looks like an equal sharing of domestic duties, emotional labour, and mental load carried out by both men and women. It also means great access to childcare, perhaps free childcare. And it means zero domestic violence.
Chloe Naughton, Senior Associate
Elynda Naru believes the march towards gender parity requires consistent effort. “The most important thing is being persistent and not losing sight of the goal, pushing forward when it's hard and then taking opportunities to accelerate when there's an opportunity to,” says Elynda.
As a collective, we paused to reflect on what BVN is doing to help close the gender gap through programs that support women at critical career stages. Our co-CEO, Ali Bounds,
We’ve been working towards gender parity at BVN for many years and we are proud of what we have achieved. However, reaching gender parity across senior leadership roles has been a complex challenge and we still have a way to go.
Today, we launch our sponsorship programme, recognising the importance of supporting women in the last mile of their careers. We continue to work towards our goal and are committed to achieving gender parity.
Ali Bounds, co-CEO
Last week, the Australian Government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) released statistics on gender pay gaps for all private sector organisations with 100+ employees for the past year (2024). BVN's number was incorrectly reported at 20.7%, but this has now been corrected to reflect the correct figure at 19.5%.
BVN supports WGEA's publication of gender pay gap information as part of national efforts to advance gender equality in the workplace because we know that transparency can promote positive change.
While women still face many challenges in the workplace and all spheres of life, there's also a growing awareness and commitment to change. If we want to accelerate progress, Hannah Rowlands believes, “we must keep the conversations going and take them everywhere — take them home, take them to friends and take them to other workplaces.”
