116: Simone is a multi-award-winning specialist, who works to increase the impact of internal employee resource groups (ERGs), maximizing the visibility and opportunities of underrepresented groups to promote equitable inclusion. Her advocacy focuses on empowering individuals and groups to know their worth, seek commonalities with others, eliminate ‘blind’ spots, and elevate all. Simone has worked within administration for over two decades. Passion for administration motivated her to create an internal network for over 500 administrative professionals at the world’s largest asset manager, alongside creating and implementing transparent, equitable career paths for the administrative population. She is a leading voice advocating for the profession. Simone highlights the need for the administrative profession to be more diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, and ability and to be strategically included by organisations when building DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs that often omit this group. Her ERG journey began first with women’s networks and progressed to her own profession and those that reflect her various intersectionality’s. She is an international keynote speaker, author, mentor, and trainer and has appeared on numerous podcasts. She is a life fellow of the UK’s only professional body for Administrative Professionals, EPAA, a lead on the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging team for the World Administrators Alliance and an Advisory Board member for Practically Perfect PA. Her work has been recognised and celebrated, being the recipient of the Unsung Hero of the Year by Women in Finance in 2021 and EA/PA of the year by WeAreTheCity in 2016.   Links: Article: https://executivesupportmagazine.com/the-need-for-inclusion/ Connect with Simone on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/simone-white-sim-plicity