At LeadershipCQ we believe that Inclusive Leadership starts early on. Education is a key component and the ESSEC program ‘Understanding and Changing the World’ is part of it.

Click here to watch the video.

In December 2025, we published our first LeadershipCQ Global DEI Bulletin. It is an opportunity  to look around the world and see how Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) continues to evolve, sometimes boldly, sometimes cautiously.

This bulletin covering Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific  launches our biannual series on best inclusion practices and their impact on performance and innovation.

On 3 December 2025, on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, LeadershipCQ had the privilege of co-hosting a conference on disability inclusion with, bringing together employees from around the world.

One powerful message stood out:
disability is not the exception; it is part of everyday life.

Whether visible or invisible, permanent, temporary or episodic, disability challenges our implicit norms and calls for deliberate inclusion. Vanessa and the participants explored, how everyday behaviors: i) the way we ask questions, ii) the way we focus on performance, and iii) how we create psychological safety, enable organizations to move from awareness to action.

In November 2025, LeadershipCQ launched its Inclusive Calendar.

This LCQ calendar is a  month-by-month guide to practicing inclusion intentionally, from exploring the five pillars of HOPES to celebrating key diversity and awareness months.

HOPES: Humble Enquiry, Observation, Perspective Taking, Emotional Awareness, Solidarity Building.

Special Months: Women’s Day, Pride Month, European Diversity Month, Disability Awareness Month, and more.

Each page invites to reflect, take action, and connect more deeply:  one month, one step closer to a more inclusive world.

Contact us to order it!

On 6 November 2025, we organized The Canvas: Creators of Inclusion at Kering for a diverse group of professionals.

Participants explored how inclusive behaviors can strengthen collective performance and practiced the H.O.P.E.S framework through activities and discussion. The session also encouraged cross-industry exchange (automotive, retail, luxury goods, food, telecoms), generating a variety of perspectives and insights.

On 16 October 2025, LeadershipCQ facilitated a conference at TU Delft called ”Inclusion Did we go to far?”

This conference invites participants to critically examine the question “Have we gone too far with inclusion?” and reframes it through the lens of performance and psychological safety. Drawing on insights from cognitive science and real-world examples, the session explores how our brains favor norms, how this leads to accidental exclusion, and why some DEI approaches fail. Vanessa Barros introduces a shift from guilt, censorship, and polarization toward deliberate inclusion, using practical levers such as observation, humility, perspective-taking, and solidarity to turn diversity into a true driver of collective performance. 

We thank TU Delft for their trust and support.

On 23 September 2025, Vanessa Barros led an interactive conference bringing together more than fifty international leaders to discuss the concept of professionalism in an intercultural context. Drawing on their concrete experiences, she offered a detailed analysis of differences in values, attitudes toward time, hierarchy, and communication, questioning the illusion of universal professionalism. 

On 25 June 2025, LeadershipCQ delivered a 1.5-hour conference for the DareWomen network, focused on practical strategies for Diversity Management.

The session introduced participants to the H.O.P.E.S framework and explored how leaders can leverage the strengths of diverse teams. Through interactive discussions and shared reflections, the event supported DareWomen’s mission to empower ambitious and entrepreneurial women.

LeadershipCQ thanks the DareWomen team for their trust and collaboration in making this session a success.

We were delighted to host our inclusive management game “The Canvas” at Kering Group’s Global Learning Day on March 20, 2025 in Hong-Kong, in Milan and in Paris Béatrice Lazat, Chief People Officer of Kering: “I believe that learning is not just a one-off event, but a lifelong journey”.

This year’s theme focused on the benefits of daily learning for development, providing employees from all our Houses with practical tools to align learning with their goals and create lasting habits. Participants were able to discover the game in a warm atmosphere and emerge with concrete inclusive management strategies H.O.P.E.S. 

We traveled to Brazil to facilitate an intercultural workshop for Vallourec’s accounting teams, with the objective of enhancing collaboration, trust, and motivation between Brazilian and French colleagues.

The week included leadership alignment, interactive team-building activities highlighted by the HOPES Game and the co-creation of a Team Charter.

By the end of the week, the teams emerged with not only a concrete plan but also a stronger sense of cohesion, shared purpose, and practical tools for sustained collaboration.

We are happy to share with you our latest article in the ESSEC Reflet Magazine (July-August Edition), in which we shared our D&I expertise. In particular, the power that inclusion has. It is always a pleasure to collaborate and share our knowledge with other alumni, thank you to ESSEC Business School for this article.

You can click here to read the full article (page 29).

At LeadershipCQ, we bring Diversity and Inclusion to life through games!!! 
  
We welcomed a dozen participants at Grant Alexander’s offices in Paris for a day around D&I awareness. 
  
The morning was rich in exchanges, and participants learned how to move from accidental exclusion (which happens to all of us), to deliberate inclusion.  

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I was delighted to attend the Diversity and Inclusion conference in London on April 20th. All the more delighted to hear inspiring testimonies, learn more about innovative D&I strategies and meet existing partners.

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