My story

A dinner that changed my life

When I sat down for a dinner I had organised back in 2013 with 13 senior female Creative Directors, I did not realise what an impact that dinner would have on my life. At the time I was simply trying to recruit more women to a club I ran called Creative Social. It was no surprise to me that when I walked in I was the only man because I had organised the dinner. However what was a surprise was what happened the minute I walked into the room - I lost my confidence. And as the conversations started to happen around me, I found myself being pushed even further away as I had very little affinity to what was being discussed. And when I got up to introduce the dinner, I was cut off.

These were all things I had heard women tell me that they had experienced in the boardroom and while I had never not believed them, I had no idea the extent of the impact of being in the in-group. And I certainly did not believe I was one of the people who was contributing to exclusion - I consider myself I good human being after all. But it made me realise that not only was I contributing to exclusion every day (e.g. just by opening up with football talk in our weekly management meeting) but unless I was actively changing the system, that for many is exclusionary, I was by definition contributing to it.

Launch of Token Man

This experience led to a conversation with Emma Perkins, who was then the Creative Director at the same agency as me, who rather than judge me when I said something slightly misguided around the gender equality issue, simply asked me questions. Which made me think. And the more I thought, the more educated I became. 

It was this conversation which led Emma and I, along with Georgia Barretta and Penny Othen, to launch the Token Man initiative in August 2014. No minority in history has ever affected change without the support of the majority and while women are clearly not in the minority in the workplace, they still are in senior leadership in many industries and the only way to create change is together. Since then, I have dedicated my career to engaging men with inclusion and diversity both through Token Man but also by becoming a specialist I&D consultant in 2017, when I co-foundes Utopia which I left in 2022 to launch Token Man Consulting which specifically works with organisations to engage senior leaders and men in the Inclusion and Diversity strategy.

Driving tangible change

I have had the privilege of deliver talks and workshops around the world, engaging men in the topic of inclusion and diversity & driving tangible change across leading businesses. Token Man has also collaborated on original research into the impact of masculine business cultures on employees and has held Masculinity In The Workplace Conferences since 2018. You can find out more about the work we do at a Token Man level including free monthly panels and events HERE.