Best live event – internal

When Inga Beale, chief executive of the Corporation of Lloyd’s, unveiled her Vision 2025 for the insurance business, it rested on eight pillars.

Alongside Innovation and Capital sits Talent. For the Vision to be successful, by 2025 Lloyd’s will be ‘a place where talented, diverse and socially responsible employees feel proud to work’.

The Corporation’s steering group, Inclusion@Lloyd’s, is working to highlight the business case for diversity and inclusion. The Festival for Diversity and Inclusion in Insurance, branded Dive In by agency Gong, was designed to show how diversity stimulates innovation, promotes productivity and generates better financial returns.

Targeted at key influencers within Lloyd’s member organisations and employees in the insurance broking market, Gong created a pre-Festival buzz with a dedicated website, activities across internal, external and social media, and branded collateral, such as coffee carts which served 19,000 drinks.

The agency also engaged with communication leaders in member companies, providing tools, templates and content for intranets and email blasts. The events took place across four days within the insurance heart of the City of London, EC3. Each day explored a different theme: Women in Insurance; Cultural DNA: Diversity Now and Always; ‘Out’ in the market and Workability, with speakers ranging from celebrity stylist Gok Wan to former BP chief executive Lord Browne.

The festival comprised a mix of panel discussions, debates and workshops to networking, art exhibitions and dance performances. The front of the iconic Lloyd’s of London building was branded with Dive In. More than 2,000 people registered to attend, resulting in 1,762 visitors.

Importantly, 99 per cent of them said that diversity and inclusion was good for business while nine in ten felt they had a better understanding of the topic as a result of the Festival. And 87.5 per cent said they now knew what to do to improve diversity and inclusion within their organisations.

The Festival generated 40 videos, which are accessible via the Dive In website, which received more than 23,000 visitors during the event. The industry’s trade publication Insurance Times has also agreed to carry monthly blogs on diversity and inclusion.

‘This was a highly creative event which challenged the old ‘pale and male’ images of Lloyds,’ said the judges. ‘It is great that this is now being exported to overseas markets.’