Women Mean Business: What are the real roadblocks to women's success?​ Follow the Telegraph's summit​ live

• Women Mean Business: Why the Telegraph has launched the campaign

• Penny Mordaunt :  If we all reach our potential, our nation will too

• Mary Portas: 'Alpha male culture isn't working - we need to rip up the workplace' 

• Christine Armstrong: The working parent myth - and what we're all really thinking

• Salary secrets: How a negotiation coach asks for a pay rise  Work-life balance advice from Britain's leading businesswomen

11:45AM

Avril Palmer-Baunack earned a bonus of £29m last year

Avril Palmer-Baunack is the CEO of British Car Auctions which owns WE Buy Any Car  and auctions around 750,000 used cars in the United Kingdom every year. She is the former chairman of Stobart Group and reportedly earned a £29m bonus last year.  

Her group has a 'reverse' gender pay gap, when women out-earn men.

"We have a lot of senior women in professional positions and we have around 850 HGV drivers," she said.

"Believe me, if I could have 400 female HGV drivers, I would have them!

"It’s not just about gender, it’s about social inclusivity. I think your character drives you more than your gender. People will always put you down, whether its social class or gender. I look back where I came from and I just believed in myself. I didn’t care what people said to me."

11:36AM

Panel: Closing the gender gap

Our next session, hosted by Telegraph feature's director Victoria Harper looks at what is driving the gender pay gap.

• Changing the perception and image of women in the workplace

• The social conditioning of what makes for successful traits in business

• Closing the gender pay gap

Speakers: Avril Palmer-Baunack, executive chairman, BCA

Vanessa Vallely OBE, founder, WeAreTheCity

Sarah Churchman OBE, Chief Inclusion, Community and Wellbeing Officer, PwC

Wies Bratby, Women in Negotiation

Moderator: Victoria Harper, features director, The Telegraph

11:34AM

Twitter is abuzz with #WomenMeanBusiness

We have had dozens of tweets so far this morning. Here are just a few. Keep using the #WomenMeanBusiness Hashtag.

11:12AM

Sexual harassment in the workplace

Devika Wood, the founder of Vida Care has opened up about her experiences of sexual harassment. Members of the audience audibly gasped as the 28-year-old told her stories.

Devika Wood:  "I have imposter syndrome. I saw Clare Balding, Mary Portas earlier and now on this panel, I feel like an imposter.

"Today, I put a dress and heels on for the first time because I am used to making myself feel and look less attractive.

"I was put in sexually compromising positions by shareholders. I was told that I could take someone’s money if I did something in return. I have friends who have been in exactly the same situation. I am so passionate about what I’m going to do, but I shouldn’t have to do that to get it.

"I had a domestic abuse relationship when I was 18/19 and had no confidence in myself. I found it very hard to address men in a boardroom."

Michael Cole-Fontayn: "The privilege of being able to mentor is making sure that you are able to understand some of the issues being faced. What Devika demonstrated is that she is stepping up to her own power. The point about being as early as possible in the journey to help young women declare ambition and say ‘It's ok to want to be in the boardroom’."

11:09AM

What can workplaces do to benefit women?

Nuala Walsh:"It's time to give people reasons to incentivise this change."

Brenda Trenowden:  "I look at organisations where women are more empowered by being more successful and the leaders always prioritise this to make it happen.

Men tend to be oversponsored compared to women. Women don’t have as many natural sponsors, that’s to say people putting them forward and praising them in group scenarios."

11:00AM

The next panel: What are the real roadblocks to women's success?

• Exit strategies: knowing if/when to leave the corporate/entrepreneurial world

• What initiatives can be introduced to benefit women?

• Is moving away really moving forward?

Speakers: Devika Wood, founder, Vida Care

Nuala Walsh, vice chair, UN Women

Michael Cole-Fontayn, independent chairman, Association for Financial Markets in Europe

Brenda Trenowden CBE, global chair, 30% Club and Head of FIG Europe ANZ

Moderator: Julia Llewelyn Smith, journalist, The Telegraph

10:33AM

Jill Pay talks about her time in the House of Commons

Jill Pay: "As luck would have it, I read a copy of the Daily Telegraph and saw the advert for Serjent at Arms at the House of Commons. Every person who had the job before me was in the military, and the one that wasn't, was a diplomat. I was down to the last two in January 2008 and the other person was a Brigadier, so they had a choice to make."

"One of the highlights of my time there was the visit of Nelson Mandela to address Parliament.

"The day Nelson Mandela made the address, at about 6:00am, a tall grey-haired man in a tracksuit jogged up to a policeman and asked if he could have a look inside parliament. The policeman said: 'I'm very sorry sir, we've got a huge event here today, there's no way you can get in."

The man then said: "I know about the event, I'm Nelson Mandela." He was duly let in to have a look around and then jogged back to his hotel.

"He made a very different entrance at 11am for the speech."

10:13AM

Julie Baker, from NatWest speaks to Jill Pay about becoming the first female and non-military Serjeant at Arms at the House of Commons.

Julie Baker, Head of Enterprise & Community Finance at NatWest speaks to Jill Pay about how she broke the glass ceiling to become the first female and non-military Serjeant at Arms at the House of Commons.

Through Pink Shoe network Jill has also been supporting women achieve their ambitions and leads on the development of the UK Economic Blueprint for Women, designed to stimulate the growth of women-owned businesses.

10:10AM

Flexible working

Question around flexible working and unconscious bias.

Dame Helena Morrissey: "We need to move to this idea that it's not how many hours you work. You want to pay a person for doing their job. We look at law firms who get paid by the hour, but you could be paying for incompetence."

Clare Balding: "It's important to make it desirable to be like that." 

Natalie Cummins: "We did a big survey in our agency and their was overwhelming support at every level for flexible working. The least enthusiastic were line managers running big groups of people. I think it's really important that if you do move to a flexible working model, everyone has to embrace it, it's not optional."

10:04AM

Questions from the floor

Question: At a junior level, sometimes it feels like the only option is to lean in and not attempting to change the culture. What are your thoughts on that?

Dame Helena Morrissey: "You have more power than you think. People want young pwople to tell them about digital and about young people's consumer trends. You need allies. You can't do it by yourself."

Mary Portas: "Use the power of a group and go to a boss together saying 'this isn't working, this is what we'd like to change'."

9:58AM

Mary Portas: "You look at what Philip Green has done - this is just hierarchical power."

Dame Helena Morrissey: "There isn't a certain formula for being successful. I think that's a great opportunity. It's about inclusivity. "

Clare Balding: "When I first started in the media industry there was definitely a fear that they would only have one woman on this show. So basically I'll need to kill you or it'll be me. 

"We have generally rewarded aggressive behaviour. I think one of the things we need to introduce into all media is the 360 review.  Jimmy Savile wouldn't have happened if there had been that. 

Mary Portas: (who has introduced the 360 review in her business) "You just behave better. 

"You look at what Philip Green has done - this is just hierarchical power. The idea that 'I am not accountable to anyone.'  Someone at Arcadia should have said 'Why don't we change the culture here so everyone is accountable?'

"It's time to put the Power of Goddess at the centre. If we do that we get into the seats of power. If I was the BBC I'd stop the Apprentice because that's the antithesis of all this. 

Natalie Cummins: “We are giving coaching women to park the lean in attitude - you don’t need to be pushy and aggressive to get ahead.”

9:48AM

How Work Needs to start working for women

Our first panel is addressing the following points:

• Why the 9 to 5 isn’t working

• Are the challenges facing men and women really so different?

• Is helping women in the workplace hindering men?

• Are women their own worst enemy?

Speakers: Mary Portas, founder and executive creative director, Portas

Dame Helena Morrissey, head of personal investing, Legal & General Investment Management

Clare Balding, broadcaster, BT Sport

Natalie Cummins, chief executive officer, Zenith Media

Moderator: Claire Cohen, associate features editor, women's editor, The Telegraph

9:45AM

"Don't tell working women about logistics"

The Rt Hon. Penny Mordaunt has hailed the Telegraph's Women Mean Business event as being "really important". Mordaunt said the business world should look to working mothers to learn something about natural entrepreneurship.

"Don't tell working women about logistics or procurement," she said. "Don't tell these people about hard work. These entrepreneurial mothers are the invention of necessity and I want them to thrive.

"I wish our great business schools would spend more time studying them."

Mordaunt hailed a new era for women in the workplace where they should no longer have to endure being "patronised and at worse being assaulted by a generation of men that elevated confidence to entitlement". 

9:32AM

Penny Mordaunt, International Development Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities

"This is a really important event. We could have £95bn added to UK economy by 2025" if we address the inequalities in men and women starting businesses.

"We talk about entrepreneurship because its always a choice. These people don't do it to appear on the front cover of Forbes or fortune magazine. They do it because they have to. 

"The fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the US is black women. They run 2.4 million businesses. And which group has the least access to capital? Yes, you guessed it."

9:19AM

The Chair's welcome

Telegraph Managing editor Jo Morrell is on the stage and opening the summit.

"Today, together, we will examine issues through interviews, panel sessions and seminars. We will look at glass ceilings, ageism, the start up funding gap, male allies in the workplace and making the workplace work better."

Jo introduces Penny Mordaunt.

9:07AM

On the agenda

Today we have a jam-packed schedule of business leaders, leading female voices and Telegraph journalists talking about a range of subjects including 'What are the real roadblocks to women's success?' 'Is the focus on women holding men back?' and 'How to boost the UK economy by investing in female-founded businesses'.

The conference room is starting to fill up...

9:01AM

The Telegraph's campaign so far

8:41AM

Good Morning!

Good morning, and welcome to The Telegraph's Women Mean Business live event.

On International Women’s Day this year, The Telegraph launched Women Mean Business - a campaign to boost female entrepreneurship in Britain.

In UK public life, we have women in high-profile positions: Prime Minister, First Minister of Scotland, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and President of the Supreme Court. But in a year when we have been celebrating the roles of women in public life - marking the centenary of the right to vote - the truth is that true equality is still a way off. There are still only 26.6 per cent women on the boards of British companies, and we have a 8.6 per cent median pay gap. Plus, there are as many men named David leading a FTSE 100 company as there are women

Even less attention tends to be paid to the difficulties confronting women seeking to start a business. The funding gap between male and female entrepreneurs is clear: The Entrepreneurs Network has found that just nine per cent of funding for UK startups goes to women-run businesses in the UK every year. They also found that men are 86 per cent more likely to be funded by venture capital and 56 per cent more likely to secure angel investment than women who seek it.

Our campaign was  designed to shine a light on the problems, and find solutions that will help not only women, but the UK economy as a whole. Deloitte estimates that targeted help for female founders could provide a £100 billion boost to the economy over the next ten years, and according to Treasury minister Robert Jenrick, untapped female entrepreneurship “may be the greatest economic opportunity of 21st century.”

Today, we are hosting a live event at Hilton's Bankside hotel, with guest speakers including Cabinet Minister Penny Mordaunt, Facebook's Vice-President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa Nicola Mendelsohn and fashion retail expert Jane Sheperdson.

There will also be panel sessions with Clare Balding, Mary Portas, Dame Helena Morrisey, Trinny Woodall, Touker Suleyman and many more. 

Stay with us for live updates throughout the day and if you haven't already, go and buy a copy of the paper! Inside, we have a special Women Mean Business pull out section, with interviews, analysis, opinion pieces and the story of the campaign so far.