Charting the
Course for Change
By Roxanne Hughes
The Women in Yachting London Edition June 2025, held in collaboration with Winch Design at their London studio, was more than a networking opportunity. It was a chance for like-minded leaders and industry professionals to come together, share ideas, and chart a course for progress in challenging the issues still faced by women working in yachting.
This edition of Women in Yachting was a little different. Bringing the Women in Yachting community together outside the context of a boat show. A panel of four female trailblazers joined moderator Sarah Flavell, Marketing Manager at Damen Yachting, for an afternoon of fresh perspective and candid conversation as they shared their experiences as leaders in the superyacht sector.
Watch the Full Panel Talk here
“It was a pleasure to welcome so many familiar faces from our Women in Yachting community as we encouraged guests to connect, exchange ideas, and bring the industry’s most pressing issues to the table,” explains Flavell. “The occasion marked a bold move for our Women in Yachting initiative, a shift from conversation to action, as we discussed the steps we can take, and support others in taking, to bring about real change.”
-Sarah Flavell, Marketing Manager Damen Yachting
The panel comprised of Annelies Damen – Member of the Damen Group’s Supervisory Board, Aino Grapin – CEO Winch Design, Georgina Menheneott – Partner & Head of Sustainability Burgess, and Julie Clark – Managing Director & Sales Director Savage Lighting.
Breaking Barriers
The session began with a vital question: what barriers still prevent more women from rising to the top, and what can we do to remove these obstacles? Annelies Damen surprised the crowd with her opening admission that there’s still more she wants to see achieved by the Damen Group. “Even in a company like ours,” Damen began, “we still have a long way to go. Across the Group’s seven divisions, we only have one female managing director – Rose Damen - and I’m the only woman on the board.” Assessing the numbers was an approach taken by Aino Grapin at Winch Design, too. “There’s a greater proportion of women working in design (59% of the Winch Design team is female) but within the company there are whole departments that comprise all men, or all women,” comments Grapin. It’s generally agreed that there’s more equity and opportunity for women in yachting than, say, 10 years ago, but echoes of outdated expectations remain. “There’s still a sense that women have to work a little harder to prove themselves,” said Julie Clark.
Opportunities and Challenges
With a focus on fostering solutions, the panel turned their attention to how we can dissolve the stereotypes and change the assumptions. “For three years of my time with Burgess, I was a yacht broker,” says Georgina Menheneott. “And people regularly assumed I was the assistant to the male brokers. It’s an unconscious bias, but it’s real and it needs to be addressed.” Menheneott continued, “We are incredibly segregated and siloed as an industry - we wear labels of ‘yacht broker’, ‘charter manager’, ‘designer’, ‘yacht manager’ etc, and although some areas of the industry have achieved gender balance, women remain underrepresented in commercial, client-facing roles and senior management.” Grapin reinforced the need to challenge the industry’s image. “When we imagine someone who works in yachting, the vast majority of us – whether you work in the industry or are an Owner – will envisage a middle-aged man in a blue blazer. And this is what we have to break away from,” says Grapin, “We need to rewrite that mental picture and create new, inclusive archetypes.”
Leadership and Innovation
What women can do to shape the future of yachting, and how they go about that, was a topic that gave the panel chance to share tangible examples of how equality had been better attained at their own companies and offer advice. As Menheneott proclaimed: “This is what women do when women work together!” And Menheneott highlighted various strategies brought in at Burgess that prioritised the human and personal needs of employees, sharing details of their maternity, paternity, and ‘returnity’ policies. Grapin suggested we all take a closer look at our human resources setups, encouraging us to consider the numbers across teams and departments, and understand why and where the imbalance is. Menheneott concluded: “Leadership is all of us doing what we believe in, and helping others to do the same.”
Mentorship and Community
“What was particularly notable on this occasion of Women in Yachting, was the clear resolve across the network to want to inspire younger minds and support aspiring women achieve their goals,” comments Flavell. For Clark, that comes in the form of direct engagement and local outreach. “I am passionate and proactive about opening up our business for young women to come and see – I am determined to show them the opportunities for them in design, in manufacturing, in yachting,” she said, and added, “we have to share our personal stories – I faced challenges as a young mother but my own mother backed me and supported me, and I want inspire and help others.” Grapin agreed and explained how she actively tries to talk about her job to the next generation.
Menheneott thought ideas could be borrowed from other industries and recalled how she had been given a helping hand in the earlier days of her career. “We have to grab rising talent and give it a hand up the ladder,” and she reiterated the need to proactively put policies in place to support women in the workforce: “It’s about everyone in the workforce, really. When we think about what’s best for mind and body, we’ll often inadvertently do what’s best for business. But we have to be advocates for other women, support other women, and take opportunities to other women.”
What comes next for Women in Yachting?
Enthused by the positivity and shared passion of the afternoon’s discussions, there was clear consensus across the group that momentum must be maintained. If inclusivity and diversity remain our biggest challenge, and we’re to draw on mentorship and collaboration to overcome this and break the bias, the next step is to involve our male counterparts in these conversations.
Damen Yachting would like to thank Winch Design for kindly hosting the session, the panellists for sharing their insight, and all the attendees who took time out of their schedules to join this conversation.
Future Events
Based on the success of Women in Yachting London, the positive feedback and requests to hold further events of this nature outside of boat shows, we have taken the decision to focus our attention in this direction moving forward. It means that we will no longer be hosting our annual boat show calendar of smaller Women in Yachting events but instead will focus on a shift towards turning conversation into action and supporting how we can bring about real change. To stay up to date with our progress and for details of our next stand-alone event, please ensure you check in regularly with our Women in Yachting event page.