A Trio of International Women’s Day Celebrations

Becky and I both attended the inaugural Athena Effect – the brainchild of Dame Kelly Holmes – in 2024. It’s where Dame Kelly asked the audience, “who’s doing the job they believe they were always destined to do?” my hand shot up, and I had the opportunity to speak about life as Chief Banana Officer. Jane Wake, one of the event’s panelists then said “you’re the banana lady, you do stuff on the beach, at the Witterings”, and POWER with Jane Wake at Tooting Bec Lido followed.

In 2025, Kelly asked me to be her guest at the event, to kick start International Women’s Day celebrations. 

The sky would be really dark with only one star. Shine a light on each other, cheer each other on, don’t outshine each other (bananachat). 

… Dame Kelly Holmes, you embody this bananachat with so much love and FIRE.

You had me at Anna Bayne the busker from the South Bank, who opened the EPIC 2025 Athena Effect event, in celebration of International Women’s Day.

I so appreciate your energy for starting conversations, giving people a voice, and empowering more people to speak up and rise up.

I also love and appreciate a voice note, and your voice note – inviting me to be part of Friday, was magic – THANK YOU. 

The speakers, the artists, the women filling the space – all INCREDIBLE.

Loved seeingJane Wake, Elesha Paul Moses and Nadia Nagamootoo – our paths crossed first at  the 2024 Athena Effect and we’ve made a bunch of memories since.

Nadia spoke of power driving the world and what happens when power is challenged, which inspired me to share a Jimi Hendrix quote that helped me name POWER – “when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace”.

I asked the panel, if not peace, what one (banana) word are they moving towards in their purpose and every day EDI/DEI mission.

Jennifer Thomas of London Stock Exchange Group: BELONGING 
Kat Parsons of Centrica: AUTHENTICITY 
Nadia: FREEDOM 
Phyll Opoku-Gyimah: HOPE

And, in a later panel Jenna Macciochi said their one fundamental pillar to wellbeing would be CONNECTION.

Angellica Bell spoke about taking your power back by ‘being your own agent’ – another takeaway. So many takeaways!

I took my FLIP THE SCRIPT banana – the 2025 theme for the Athena Effect was Changing The Narrative – from Friday’s event, to ‘the Beach on Saturday (International Womens Day itself). Where I shared what I’d learnt about the film, The Six Triple Eight that Kelly spoke about. I then received messages from the bunch to say they went home and watched the film – the Athena (ripple) Effect lives on, and on.

To complete the trio of International Womens Day celebrations, we took supporting the Sweaty Betty Foundation to new heights – 800 ft above London – to deliver POWER Yin at The View From The Shard. Becky delivered a specially-curated PERSPECTIVE banana-led practice, as the sun rose over the iconic London landmarks.

In collaboration with Sweaty Betty, a beautiful bunch rolled out their mats and were joined by Dame Kelly, who experienced POWER for the first time. Her first banana word: WARRIOR.