Equipping leaders

International Women’s Day 2025

We began the year by bringing intercultural leadership into International Women’s Day.

At Boots Ireland, Mamobo joined a one to one conversation on gender equity, language and representation, exploring how identity and belonging show up in everyday workplace culture.

If you’re planning speakers for International Women’s Day 2026 and want to move beyond slogans, GORM can support with keynotes, panels and workshops rooted in intercultural psychology and lived experience - LET'S TALK

Unified Business Programme

In May, we launched GORM’s Unified Business Programme at EY, Ireland’s first business programme focused on embedding intercultural competence in the workplace and home to Ireland’s first certification for intercultural maturity.

Our pioneering 2025 partners, EY and PTSB, are already using the programme to build more confident, culturally intelligent teams.

The three-tiered structure supports leaders to move from Awareness to Sensitivity to Competence through:

• Evidence based leadership training
• Online learning and toolkits
• Strategic support that turns policy into daily practice

If you are an HR, DEI or people leader, you can join the 2026 Unified Business Programme waiting list and be first to hear when applications open.

Key partners we trained in 2025

We are deeply grateful to the organisations whose teams took part in GORM trainings, workshops and learning programmes this year, including:

Corporate and public sector
EY, PTSB, AXA Insurance, Public Jobs, Tusla, University College Dublin (UCD), Ibec, NOVAS, Maynooth Students’ Union, LGBT Ireland, IRD Duhallow, Limerick City and County Council, South Dublin County Council, Boots Ireland and Deloitte Ireland.

Creative, youth and community
Safe to Create, Helium Arts, Léargas, SALTO Resource Centres, Cultural & Creative Industries Skillnet, Screen Ireland, Coimisiún na Meán, National Talent Academies, Gaisce and THINKHOUSE.

Together, these partners helped us bring intercultural competence, anti-racism and inclusive leadership into boardrooms, classrooms and creative spaces across Ireland.

Local integration in action

Our work with Limerick City and County Council and South Dublin County Council helped shape new ways of understanding integration and belonging at local level.

By centring community voices and psychological insight, these projects moved beyond consultation to genuine co-creation. asking not just “who is in the room?” but “who gets to design the room in the first place?”

If you are planning training or strategy work for 2026, you can book a slot in our calendar to explore what Equipping Leaders might look like for your organisation.

Enabling communities

Turning diverse talent into supported storytellers

Behind every inclusive workplace is a wider ecosystem where young people and creatives can practice being heard. For GORM, that ecosystem is our Enabling Communities programmes, and in 2025, it grew.

Wideshot and Close-Up

Across our community programmes in 2025:

• Young people took part in Wideshot and the Close-Up Summer Residency
• Workshops ran nationwide with partner venues such as Belltable, Rua Red and Dublin Fringe Festival
• Nine emerging creatives joined us at The Deerstone, Wicklow, for a week of storytelling, filmmaking and pitching
• Close-Up winner Marcello Fidelis developed his short film GO HOME, which went on to premiere at GORM Gathering 2025
• Alumni like Shantel Waruinge, whose film MICHAELA premiered this year, continued to show what happens when underrepresented storytellers are backed with skills, networks and support

These programmes are built on a simple belief: communities don’t need saving, they need pathways, resources and trust.

If you are a community partner, funder or youth organisation, you can explore our community programmes and register your interest for 2026.

GORM Gathering 2025 – Disrupting DEI through Storytelling

This year’s GORM Gathering brought artists, activists, leaders and partners together at The Complex, Dublin, under the theme Disrupting DEI through Storytelling.

The day:

• Featured the premiere of GO HOME by Close-Up resident Marcello Fidelis
• Hosted two panels on reclaiming authorship and resisting DEI tokenism through film, art and performance
• Included a community co-creation session, where institutions became “keynote listeners” and community voices shaped what belonging should look like
• Closed with a Palestinian Dabke performance and a TAWLA food ritual, turning dessert into shared story, care and belonging

In a year when division is loud, GORM Gathering was a live example of what Enabling Communities looks like, community led, creatively brave and rooted in solidarity and belonging.

You can revisit the day through our GORM Gathering 2025 video and an interview with Close-Up 2025 winner Marcello Fidelis.

Elevating voices

Through our fifth season of This is Them, we kept complex stories at the centre, asking again and again: whose voices are missing, and what happens when they are heard?

In 2025 we shared conversations with:

• Lydia Gratis – on communication preferences and intersectional accessibility
• Alicia Raye – on invisible illness, burnout and founding HYMN, a music tech solution rooted in care
• Tolu Asemota – on diaspora, identity and rewriting Ireland’s food culture through his pop up restaurant Ibile
• Susan Thandile Mkhabela – on racism, migration and turning pain into purpose and policy
• Emma Ward – on life at the intersection of Traveller identity and disability in Ireland

Each story reminded us that representation is not symbolic, it is cultural power. Stories change how we see each other and build shared belonging.

You can watch This is Them Season 5 on our channels, and share episodes with teams or communities as a starting point for deeper dialogue.

Awards and recognition

In 2025, GORM and our team were recognised across Ireland and internationally, including:

• Female Entrepreneur of the Year (Local Enterprise Office Awards - Mamobo)
• Finalist - Business & Finance ESG Innovation Award (GORM)
• Finalist - Future ESG Leader Award (Beatriz Gómez Moreno)
• Shortlisted – IMAGE Media PwC Diversity & Inclusion Leader of the Year (Mamobo)
• Finalist -Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize (Mamobo)
• Named among the Inspirational D&I Leaders 2025 (Mamobo)
• Nominations at the African Professional Network of Ireland Awards for Young Professional of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year (Mamobo) and Company of the Year (GORM)

For us, these recognitions are not the end goal, but they do signal something important: there is a growing appetite for brave, research grounded, community centred approaches to belonging.

Board and governance

Behind the scenes, we have been strengthening the structures that hold all of this work.

In 2025, we welcomed a new Board of Directors:

• Áine Connor, Chair, Non Executive Director
• Paul O Connell, Non Executive Director
• Pendo O’Donoghue, Non Executive Director

We also formally signed the Safe to Create Code of Behaviour, deepening our commitment to safer, accountable practice in every space we work in.

For our partners and funders, this means clearer decision making, stronger oversight and a team that is built to grow with intention. You can learn more about our Board and governance on our website HERE.

Looking ahead to 2026

In 2026 we will:

• Expand the Unified Business Programme cohort and intercultural maturity certification
• Deepen learning pathways for managers and teams
• Scale the Wideshot Programme, Close-Up Summer Residency and alumni supports
• Return with GORM Gathering 2026, the third year of the event
• Grow our digital learning so more people can access intercultural tools wherever they are

Put simply:

• We equip leaders so systems change
• We enable communities so people have access and agency
• We elevate voices so stories shift culture

All three serve one outcome:
a society where difference does not mean division, and belonging is actively built.

What you can do next

For HR, DEI and senior leadership teams

• Join the Unified Business Programme interest list for 2026
• Reserve your 2026 training dates, especially around IWD, Pride and Black History Month
• Book a short call to map how intercultural competence can become a strategic advantage in your organisation

For community, youth and programme leads

• Sign up to our Newsletter for 2026 Wideshot and Close-Up updates
• Register your interest in GORM Gathering 2026 by emailing community@gormmedia.com
• Explore partnership if you are designing programmes for young people, artists or underrepresented communities, by emailing community@gormmedia.com

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