What We Are

Founder

Hilary Williams is a Chartered Project Professional who has worked largely in aerospace and energy sectors, an ICF accredited Executive Coach, and a writer. Her Substack, The Lightbulb Lounge, has been featured in The Guardian and The i. 

Hilary spends her working life inside systems, leading complex programmes, coaching people through the transitions those systems create. That's given her a practical eye for when something works as intended, and when it's been hollowed out and repurposed. International Women's Day is the second kind.

IWD started as a day of feminist organising. Over decades it's been absorbed into commercial marketing: brand campaigns, empowerment merchandise, panel events with no follow-through. The result isn't dilution. It's confusion; people looking for the real thing and finding a diluted, commercial one instead.

Hilary registered IWDforALL.org to put the substance back. A version of IWD honest about what still needs to change, and serious about changing it. She's looking for people who feel the same frustration, and who have the ambition to do something about it.

Co-Founder 

Clare spent 20 years in advertising before realising the biggest brand and business risk most companies face started in the playground - gender stereotypes. Now, through Not Only Pink and Blue, Clare helps leaders spot what others can't see and turn it into a performance advantage.

Clare is a communications expert working to close the gender equality gap. As the CEO and founder of the award-winning business Not Only Pink and Blue, she challenges gender stereotypes from birth and beyond, helping people see how these assumptions shape the way we think, work, and lead. 

Through talks, workshops, and consultancy, Clare works with businesses, schools, and individuals to understand how stereotypes shape thinking, culture, output ad parenting. She draws on 20 years’ experience in marketing and advertising, including leadership roles at TBWA, M&C Saatchi, and Virgin Group, to bring practical insight and compelling perspective to her work. 

Clare’s mission is to spark small, conscious changes that create a big difference for current and future generations.

Co-Founder

Emma Thomas is an EMCC certified executive coach dedicated to supporting women through the career-defining transitions the workplace rarely accounts for: career change, the return from parental leave, perimenopause, and organisational upheaval. Her work sits squarely in the conversation about gender equity at work, making visible the overlapping pressures that disproportionately push experienced women out of the workforce, and building the confidence and clarity to help them stay and lead.

After 30 years in publishing, Emma's own collision of redundancy, caring responsibilities, and hormonal change led her to found The Triple Shift and Managing the Menopause, practices helping organisations retain and support midlife women rather than lose them at their most experienced. 

She hosts The Middling Along Podcast (125+ episodes on ageing, career, and wellbeing) and writes on perimenopause and workplace inclusion for The Female Lead and Grazia.

Co-Founder

 Andrew Keogh is an Irish product and engineering leader who has spent his career helping organisations build software, and understanding how to remove frictions so that the lives of the people creating it get better. 

He writes Octoshark, a weekly newsletter on product management and organisational design. 

He is a firm believer in gender equity and is keen to address the barriers that under-represented communities face in business.