Young Women into Leadership (You WIL ) Summit 2025
Young Women Into Leadership (You WIL) summit aims to inspire future female leaders.
Heather Law, International Affairs Manager, Tasniya Syed, Graduate Officer, Iraia Cordoba, Project Officer and Sukhi Kaur, Projects and Funding Officer from the European and International Affairs Team at Birmingham City Council, together with Associate Professor Meng Tian (Academic Lead) and Hannah Lowe from Birmingham Global at the University of Birmingham, have joined forces to deliver an exciting week-long leadership summit designed to inspire the next generation of female leaders.
In 2025, 75 girls aged 14–16 were enrolled in the online programme, which is taking place from 21st to 28th July. This year’s summit has a truly global flavour, with Birmingham girls joined by peers from India as well as from Birmingham’s partner cities – Changchun, Chicago, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Lyon, Milan and Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine).
The programme promotes diversity and inclusivity and is mindful of the participation of girls from disadvantaged backgrounds – well over half were from Birmingham’s most deprived wards. The summit is thematically focused with each day covering a different topic: Women in Politics and Public Service; Business; Sport and Wellbeing; Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM); and Creative Industries, Culture and Media.
Once again there was a stellar line up of speakers sharing their insight and wisdom with participants, including:
- Chancellor Sandie Okoro OBE – the first female Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, a pre-eminent lawyer and champion of equality rights, the inaugural Chair of the Women of the World (WOW) Foundation, Senior Vice-President and General Counsel at the World Bank Group.
- Prof Helen Pankhurst – Activist and Academic, CARE International, Centenary Action Group and great granddaughter of Emeline Pankhurst leader of the British Suffragette movement
- Simone Magill – Footballer for Birmingham City F.C and Captain of the Northern Irish Women’s Football Team
- Hannah England – Athletics World Championship medallist, Sports Broadcaster, co-founder of Birmingham Athletics Academy
- Sandeep Sandhu – Head of Stakeholder Relationships at Innovate UK Business Connect
- Di Xiao – Concert pianist named amongst the 10 most outstanding Chinese concert pianists and champion of female composers
The participants are supported by student and staff mentors, led by Associate Professor Frances Seabridge from the University of Birmingham, to develop presentations on a given theme. These will be presented live online on Monday, 28th July to an international panel consisting of Professor Sammer Saleh Jones, Associate Professor Meng Tian, Associate Professor Frances Seabridge, and Director Andrea Edwards.
Comments from previous years
Comments from previous years
'It has given me more confidence into finding a field to go into, and I feel like it has opened up more career opportunities I may not have considered earlier such as the culture and media industry. I have also learnt skills of leadership and organising a team, as well as understanding and empathy when working in multicultural groups.’
(Anonymous 2024)
‘The You WIL summit has helped me realize even ordinary people can become these inspirational leaders as long as I put myself out there. This has increased my confidence to make a name for myself by beginning from just finding where I can add value.’
(Anonymous 2024)
‘After the You WIL summit I certainly felt a new surge of motivation. I realized that perhaps my confidence was all within and just needed to be brought out by taking risks. Hearing all the motivational women speak, I learned that there are multiple careers present in each field and every role can largely impact society as a whole.’
(Anonymous 2024)