Highlights from our global conference
By Lara Davis, Director of Communications, Marketing and Digital at Business Disability Forum.
Lara shares highlights from our recent Global Conference ‘Disability Inclusion in a complex world’ kindly sponsored by HSBC.
Businesses have been demonstrating their agility and resilience in responding to changes in regulation, legislation, governments, and navigating some challenging attitudes around the globe.
Kicking off the event, BDF’s Chief Executive Diane Lightfoot reflected that “It feels more important than ever for us to come together as a global disability inclusion community to support each other and to recognise the progress and the good work that continues…. in spite of a corrosive narrative that says disability inclusion is not important.”
After a welcome from Carolanne Minashi, Global Head of Inclusion at HSBC we moved into our first panel session, Getting serious about inclusion in a complex world where speakers highlighted that disability inclusion is both an ethical imperative and a business opportunity, requiring action beyond compliance. Speakers mentioned the global momentum for inclusion, questioned why we need a specific business case for disability inclusion and the importance of embedding it across all aspects of business.
Jürgen Menze, Disability Inclusion Specialist at the International Labour Organization noted that organisations are not backing down on actual inclusion work, in fact many are strengthening it particularly in Africa, Asia and lower income countries. He also shared an encouraging growth in global disability networks with new additions in Thailand and Tanzania.
Wolfgang Kowatch, MD at myAbility, Austria reflected that when there’s an economic crisis and you need to lay off people, inclusive practice is often not a business priority but the will is still there. “We need to find new ways, new budgets and new multipliers but we keep doing it, the future is good”.
Amy Whalley, CEO at Australian Disability Network felt that times were tough for D&I practitioners but the momentum is still there – there’s just a need to think differently about how we make progress. She emphasised “the importance of disability inclusion across the whole business, not just HR, and the importance of focusing on customers too.”
Questioned on whether there even needs to be a business case for disability inclusion, Jürgen was clear: “Why a business case for marginalised groups only? We need to move away from a niche ‘othering’ discussion to how we create workplaces that work for all.”
The effects of legislation and the potential benefits and risks of AI on disabled peoples’ lives was also discussed. Legislation was seen as valuable but just one element in the mix. “It’s important but not the only thing, said Jürgen, “We need to be looking at the wider labour market and wider laws across the world. Civil society needs to know about legislation and hold government accountable.”
AI was definitely seen as an opportunity for disabled people and there was a feeling that the hype will settle soon. “There’s incredible innovation happening with AI for people with disabilities, both in employment and in the community, but we need to acknowledge the red flags. Leadership plays a key role.” said Amy.
With the European Accessibility Act now in force we explored how businesses are responding with Abi James, Senior Digital accessibility Consultant at Barclays, Christopher Patnoe, Lead for EMEA Accessibility & Digital Inclusion from Google and Neil Milliken, Global Head of Accessibility &Digital Inclusion at Atos. After a comprehensive intro from Abi of what’s in and out of scope in the Act it was clear that there is a lot to do for businesses selling in Europe to comply, not least because it’s applied individually in each country. ‘‘It’s a time where we are going to do our best and learn it as we go”, said Chris. Although it’s too early yet to see what’s being enforced Neil urged everyone to start the work and document it, that hiding issues were more likely to cause problems than showing you have a plan of action in place.
For more on this see BDF’s resource The EAA, what businesses need to know and do.
In Maintaining high accessibility standards globally, chaired by John McCalla-Leacy, Head of Global ESG, KPMG International, we explored how businesses are navigating the complex global landscape and in particular challenges to DEI, yet still developing and maintaining people-centred high accessibility standards for employees and consumers. Developing, implementing and maintaining consistent standards across a global footprint can be challenging, but is the most effective means to achieving the widest possible impact.
Donna Bungard, Director of Accessibility at Indeed talked about their skills-first approach to recruitment and job design. To make this effective she said workplaces needed to develop ‘psychologically safe cultures’ to reduce fear in the workplace that might be associated with assumed risk of hiring outside of the usual experience profile. “Being skills-led can allow candidates to truly show exactly what they can do”, she said. Surali Siriwardene, Global Co-Chair of Ability ERG at HSBC urged global organisations to identify key journeys, the non-negotiable elements and to collaborate with others because “when you are operating globally and embracing the cultural nuance that is so much part of that, consistency has to be flexible.” Critical thinking and scalability is also key in showing economic viability, said Marc Powell, Global Accessibility Centre of Excellence Lead, Unilever, and it’s not a case of either inclusivity or business – accessibility drives both and increases purchase intent.
Read a recap of the session Maintaining high accessibility standards globally.
In Understanding your global accessibility activities Adrian Ward, Director of Operations .at Business Disability Forum, was joined by Paula Aitkenhead from Schneider Electric and Christina Jones from Shell to talk about the importance, value, and challenges of conducting global disability inclusion maturity assessments.
The panel opened by exploring why maturity assessments matter for multinational organisations. Paula emphasised that, “These assessments really drive awareness – we can’t fix what we don’t know. Maturity assessments help us to provide structure and a deep understanding of where we are and where we need to go.”
Christina added that the process helps organisations move forward incrementally: “Eat the elephant one little bite at a time. None of us have this all figured out – we are all learning and growing in this process. Maturity assessments allow us to take a step back and work out where to go next.”
The conversation highlighted how maturity and awareness vary significantly across regions. Paula noted that, “Awareness and implementation varies greatly in different regions – the assessment helps to shape shared language around disability inclusion and a baseline to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable.”
From a broader perspective, Adrian stressed the current urgency of this work, saying that “There has probably never been a more important time….We are not seeking perfection, we are seeking to help organisations to get started on this journey.”
Turning to practical considerations for organisations preparing to embark on a global assessment. Paula encouraged attendees not to feel daunted by the scale of the task: “It will feel overwhelming, because there is so much to be done – be kind to yourself. Start with curiosity not judgement. Don’t wait until you feel like ‘everything is ready’ before you dive into your assessment. Just the act of assessing can be so powerful and a driver of change in itself.”
Christina highlighted the importance of ownership and engagement at country level, explaining that, “We need to get our country leadership teams to own this more. We have taken little steps along the way to get the different functions involved – the next level for us is to get the leaders that are running those businesses to really feel that ownership as well.”
The discussion underscored that while global maturity assessments come with complexities – such as varying legal frameworks, cultural expectations, and organisational structures – they remain a crucial tool. They enable organisations to understand their starting point, identify regional differences, engage the right stakeholders, and build momentum for sustained, inclusive change.
Shell and Schneider Electric are kindly sponsoring BDF’s new Global Assessment Tool.
Closing the conference, our keynote speaker was Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Chief Accessibility Officer and Vice President at Microsoft. Three decades into the company’s work in accessibility Jenny stressed the importance of accessibility as a route to innovation.
In terms of getting the ROI out of DEI Jenny was clear. Be patient, know you will get things both right and wrong and have strong listening systems. It’s only once you have the foundational items in place, and mandatory training on accessibility that you can start leaning into the accessibility potential.
Jenny stressed a need to be responsible with AI: “Make sure you have the principles to have the systems and the controls. Responsible AI has to be grounded and clear. Leverage this as an opportunity to ‘shift left’ and build by design”. She also highlighted a huge need for everyone to get skilled up, in particular disabled people, and for AI training to be inclusive and accessible. She also cited research on assistive technology by Forrester that shows that 70 per cent of people can now benefit from AI. Jenny also shared some work Microsoft are doing to improve the portrayal of disabilities more accurately in AI generated images.
Jenny remains optimistic about AI but highlighted that with any technology area, with any changing environment there is the possibility of widening the digital divide. “We missed this the first time around – only 4 per cent of websites are accessible. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past. We need to lean in, be stewards of it and invest the time to learn all the goodness coming out.”
The energy in the virtual room was clear. Disability inclusion feels more important than ever given current issues around the world, so it was great to come together as a disability inclusion community to support each other and recognise the progress and good work that continues despite the challenges.
BDF Members and Partners will be able to watch all the sessions from our Global Conference on the Knowledge Hub in the days to come.
More links:
People Management 21 November 2025: Need for business case for disability inclusion is ‘absurd’, say global accessibility leaders
Diginomica 25 November 2025 An important lesson from Microsoft – how you can obtain a return on investment from DEI initiatives in an AI age