With International Women’s Day just around the corner, our latest Turbine event heard from the best and brightest women in media and advertising.

The over-subscribed event featured the thoughts of Grey’s CEO Lucy Jameson, Thinkbox’s CEO Lindsay Clay and joint CEO of Rockabox, Torie Chilcott and was chaired by The Telegraph’s Women’s editor Emma Barnett.

The event kicked off with a look at the current landscape.  Research delivered by Alice Enders showed that progress has been made; there are now 1 million women-led businesses in the UK, but there is, much more to be done. A recurrent theme throughout the night was how to tackle the “motherhood penalty” –a significant pay discrepancy encountered by women across all sectors when they hit the age of 35. Alice mentioned a key point to press home was that women are not liabilities at this age – 90% return to work after pregnancy.

Another big discussion point of the evening was female entrepreneurship. Our illustrious panel was in agreement that cultural factors were significant barriers to women’s progress in the workplace, with many factors underlying the perception of women. Entrepreneurship can be a freeing alternative for women, particularly as the UK has a great digital infrastructure. We should be championing this as an opportunity for women to determine their own trajectories.

The evening had it all – including a tale of a game of ‘musical secretaries’ at an 80s Christmas work party and of course, some tasty pork pies that went down well with guests and panel alike!

The event closed with our aims for the foreseeable future –getting actual legislation enforced to take action fast and taking opportunities when they are offered.