Last week we launched a new digital consulting platform called Future Women Academy to help organisations fast-track their progress on diversity and inclusion. FW Academy offers in-depth articles, practical tip-sheets, podcasts, insight papers, toolkits, conversation guides, as well as on-demand advice from our experienced team.

It’s for business leaders, change-makers, HR and diversity professionals in organisations of all sizes – whether they’re starting out or well progressed on their inclusion journey.

We created the platform because we understand it can be overwhelming and time-consuming for leaders to find real-impact resources to progress diversity and inclusion. With an easy to use browser experience, FW Academy helps you find the right information and tools faster.

It’s a subscription-based model for organisations, with subscriptions funding rapid content refresh and consulting support to meet different knowledge and resource needs.

It’s called Future Women Academy to reflect our partnership with Future Women, the fast-growing multimedia platform raising the profile of gender equality and connecting women through a digital community, to bring this platform to life.

With an easy to use browser experience, FW Academy helps member organisations find the right information and tools faster.

Founding Director of Future Women, Helen McCabe, said the new consulting platform serves the core of Future Women’s mission which is to facilitate genuine change in the advancement of equality. 

“Our goal for the Future Women Academy is to reach the broadest number of companies. With our reach and the expertise of Diversity Partners we can make a genuine difference in the performance of businesses,” McCabe said in a launch article.

We describe Future Women Academy as an online centre of excellence on diversity and inclusion, powered by insights and curated news and research from our independent and experienced team.

It’s almost ten years since we started Diversity Partners, and the digital evolution with FW Academy extends our deep commitment and offerings to create more diverse and inclusive workplaces.

We founded Diversity Partners with little more than a rough vision of helping guide organisations on the strategic change required to achieve greater diversity. Since then, our work with more than 300 Australian and global organisations has taken us from mine sites and operational hubs to board rooms, in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, London and Singapore. 

Along the way we’ve learnt so much about effective ways to deliver long-lasting solutions to suit the needs of different clients. We know hardwiring diversity and inclusion in company cultures and structures takes significant work, and having smart resources, tools and advice at our fingertips is an important way to reduce the load.

Having smart resources, tools and advice at our fingertips is an important way to reduce the load for HR professionals and business leaders.

We hope FW Academy becomes a go-to resource for organisations who share our commitment to more inclusive workplaces.

Here’s some more details about Future Women Academy.

Q: What is Future Women Academy?

Future Women Academy is a new diversity consulting platform in Australia, offering a unique combination of expertise and firepower to organisations through the partnership between Future Women and consulting firm, Diversity Partners.

Organisations can access quality in-depth articles on diversity strategies, metrics, diversity councils, unconscious bias, inclusive communications and much more.  There’s practical tip-sheets for leaders on inclusive leadership, recruiting objectively, working flexibly, engaging with diverse customers, setting targets, among other relevant topics, which organisations can download and share internally. 

FW Academy also features Insight Papers, podcasts, curated news and research from around the globe to support knowledge and capability building. On-call consulting advice is available from the team of experienced professionals at Diversity Partners.

The platform is designed so we can regularly seek inputs from member organisations on their information needs, and quickly curate content to meet those needs. 

Q: Who is FW Academy for?

FW Academy is for organisations committed to gender equality, diversity and inclusion. The content is for business leaders, change-makers, marketing and HR professionals, at small, medium and large size organisations. 

Whether your organisation is starting out, or well down the path towards an inclusive culture, FW Academy has resources and information shortcuts to accelerate progress. 

Q: Why should companies get involved?

It can be overwhelming and time-consuming to find real-impact resources – best practice checklists, how-to leader guides, and on-call advice – to fast-track your organisation’s diversity and inclusion progress. FW Academy helps you find the right information faster than ever before.

Q: Who are the founders and contributors?

FW Academy is a partnership of Nine’s Future Women and Diversity Partners.

Future Women is a start-up financially backed by Nine Network. Future Women was founded by Helen McCabe (Nine Digital Content Director) and is led by her and a small team including Jamila Rizvi who work solely for FW. Memberships go towards funding quality long-form journalism, events and community engagement. A portion of memberships also go towards the FW Foundation which supports the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.

Diversity Partners was founded by Dr Katie Spearritt in 2009, and the consulting firm has since worked with more than 300 organisations to progress diversity and inclusion.