Anna Baréz-Brown
Most diversity programmes do not produce diverse leadership. They run on the margins of the business, owned by mid-level HR, measured by participation rather than progression. Senior teams remain unbalanced, retention drops at the same career stage it has always dropped, and the gap between stated values and lived experience widens.
Anna Baréz-Brown helps global organisations build the leadership pipelines their diversity commitments promise, working through coaching programmes that have moved thousands of women into senior roles across more than 75 nationalities.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Anna Baréz-Brown
- A track record at scale: the Shine programme has reached thousands of women across four continents and more than 75 nationalities, with named corporate clients including WPP, Channel 4, TikTok, Rothschild & Co, and Google.
- Her work is built around retention and progression metrics, not engagement scores. Clients commission her when the gender balance of their senior roster needs to change, not when they need an inspirational keynote.
- She frames inclusion as a commercial discipline. Her core argument, that diversity fails in most companies because it sits with people who lack decision rights and budget, lands credibly with COOs and CEOs as well as CHROs.
- A corporate operator before a coach: a former European Sales Director responsible for 12 countries and 85 employees, with credentials as a CTI Leadership Coach, NLP Master Practitioner, and qualified Organisational Relationship Systems Coach.
- She talks to men as well as women. The programme deliberately addresses allyship, micro-aggressions, and the part male leaders play in changing the system, which makes her workable for organisations nervous about polarised DEI framing.
Biography highlights
- Co-founder of Shine (now We Are Shine), launched 2013 with Caroline Whaley.
- Former European Sales Director with responsibility for 12 countries and 85 employees.
- Earlier roles at Axel Springer Verlag and Bertelsmann.
- Programme has worked with thousands of women across more than 75 nationalities and four continents.
- Named clients include WPP, Rothschild & Co, TikTok, Channel 4, Google, Channel 4, ITV, and EasyJet.
- Credentialled as a CTI Leadership Coach, Neuro-Linguistic Master Practitioner, and qualified Organisational Relationship Systems Coach.
Biography
Most diversity work fails on the same fault line. Programmes sit inside HR, measured by sign-up rates and sentiment, while the senior roster keeps reproducing itself. Promotion patterns do not move. Mid-career women leave. The gap between stated values and lived experience widens.
Shine, the organisation Anna Baréz-Brown co-founded with Caroline Whaley in 2013, was built to attack that fault line directly. The programme is delivered into companies including WPP, Channel 4, TikTok, Rothschild & Co, and Google, and is measured against retention, promotion, and the gender balance of senior teams. It has worked with thousands of women across more than 75 nationalities and four continents.
The credibility behind that work is corporate, not activist. Before launching Shine, Baréz-Brown ran a sales business as European Director with twelve countries and eighty-five staff reporting in, after earlier roles at Axel Springer Verlag and Bertelsmann. She is a CTI Leadership Coach, an NLP Master Practitioner, and a qualified Organisational Relationship Systems Coach.
Her argument to senior teams is commercial. Diversity stalls because the responsibility is delegated downward, the investment is underestimated, and the conversation polarises before any system actually changes. Her work treats inclusion as a leadership discipline that involves men and women, allies and sceptics, and the operating decisions of the business itself.
Key speaking topics
- Gender balance in senior leadership
- Inclusive leadership and allyship
- Building corporate leadership pipelines
- Coaching cultures and feedback
- Personal energy and performance at work
- Influence, impact, and executive presence
- Courageous conversations and managing micro-aggressions
Ideal for
- CHROs, Chief People Officers, and Heads of D&I designing senior pipeline programmes.
- CEOs and ExCo sponsors who want gender balance treated as a commercial outcome, not a comms initiative.
- Leadership development teams running cohort programmes for high-potential women and their managers.
- Male executives and line managers being asked to act as allies and sponsors in practice.
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of why most diversity programmes do not move the senior roster, and what does.
- Language and tools for courageous conversations across difference, including on micro-aggressions.
- Specific practices for women navigating senior career transitions: stakeholder management, brand, energy, narrative.
- A framing of inclusion that male leaders can act on, not just endorse.
- A diagnostic for where their own organisation’s pipeline is leaking and who needs to own the fix.
Talks
A practical session on energy as a strategic resource for senior women under sustained pressure.
Key takeaways:
- The personal habits that protect performance through long careers.
- Where energy leaks happen most for women in senior roles.
- Recovery practices that scale alongside responsibility.
A working session on having the conversations that diversity work usually avoids.
Key takeaways:
- How to raise micro-aggressions and bias without shutting the room down.
- Structures for honest feedback across difference.
- What allyship looks like when it is uncomfortable.
A senior leadership talk on building credibility and presence inside complex organisations.
Key takeaways:
- Stakeholder mapping for women moving into ExCo-adjacent roles.
- Narrative and brand at senior level.
- The cost of silence on issues that matter to the business.