Midlife Women, powering tomorrow’s workforce
Visible Start drives business growth, diversity, and inclusion.
Our partners:
CUT COSTS, NOT TALENT
WITH OUR BESPOKE RETURNERS’ PROGRAMME
Visible Start drives business growth, diversity, and inclusion. Here’s how…
Save Recruitment Costs
We curate, nurture and develop a pool of seasoned professionals with adaptable skills, ready to grow in, and with, your business.
Accessible for a full year.
Reputation
Boost
People like businesses that do the right thing. Enhance your employer reputation by integrating midlife women into your workforce.
Social Responsibility
Midlife talent brings about
real change and a positive,
long term impact.
Improves staff retention.
CUT COSTS, NOT TALENT
WITH OUR ADDITIONAL SERVICES
Work with us to drive down your resource costs, gain access to a quality talent pool and strengthen your retention.
Consultation
We help you identify gaps in your current workforce and recruitment. We then work with you to design strategies to attract, empower and integrate midlife women into your workforce as part of your strategic growth.
Facilitation
We support your leadership, HR and teams to bridge the gap between genders and generations. Our sessions develop understanding and empathy, leading to better communication, collaboration and retention.
Training
Our experts equip your team with the skills and knowledge they need for now and the future. From adopting AI tools to understanding menopause, our training engages and informs, leading to improved productivity.
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JOIN OUR COMMUNITY
MIDLIFE WOMEN – Join us, IT’S FREEWill you join our Key Sponsor WPP in stepping up to better decisions, more profit, and happier employees?
We started our journey with a sponsorship from global advertising agency WPP.
Four years in, we know our programme works and we understand the transformation that takes place in the organisations that partner with us to sponsor a programme.
Now it’s time to share this level of change with more organisations.
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Why Midlife Women?
Why Now?
For the first time in history, the UK’s population of adults aged 50+ is larger than those aged 19 and under.
Midlife women have witnessed and adapted to huge societal and technological revolutions: the only generation to straddle the analogue and digital ages.
The talent pipeline is shrinking, and organisations need to change their workforce strategies. Fast.
They are uniquely positioned to help solve challenges and add value to industries facing rapid change.
The Profound Impact of Women in Executive Positions:
Higher
Profits
Companies with gender-diverse leadership teams don’t just perform better.
They bring in 25% more profit. McKinsey, ‘Diversity Wins’ 2020
Smarter Decisions
Multi-generational teams make strong, insightful choices.
Midlife women bring wisdom, resilience, humanity, and mentorship.
Stronger
ESG
Stronger Economic, Social Governance, and CSR Outcomes
Organisations with midlife women in leadership positions simply do better.
Better Retention
Higher Employee Engagement and Retention
More women in leadership = higher engagement + stronger retention
A competitive advantage
“…by employing midlife women, Visible Start has given WPP a competitive advantage”
Mark Read, CEO
WPP
Partner with us
“I now realise that by employing midlife women, Visible Start has given WPP a competitive advantage.”
“The idea behind what Visible Start is about is fantastic – I really enjoyed doing the talk and chatting to people who were genuinely interested in understanding what a career in media looks like. It was a nice opportunity to encourage people to consider this industry as I do think my company is a great place to work. ”
“Being part of Visible Start 2025 was an incredibly rewarding experience. I had the chance to speak with some truly remarkable women. Their energy, curiosity, and passion for the industry is something we could all learn from. The work Jacquie and her team are doing isn’t just important, it’s essential: making sure these women, and more like them, get a seat at the table they so thoroughly deserve to be on.”
“Visible Start affects more than just the ladies on the course, meeting all the wonderful ladies during the speed mentoring made me also take stock. It made me think about what/how I would treat people returning to work. It also made me chat to loads of people in the office over the following weeks. Visible Start gains more traction than just that of those included.”
“Working with Visible Start was an absolute pleasure. Personally, it really helped me gain confidence in terms of presenting to a large audience! It gave me a sense of pride to give back and inspire the women in the programme.”
“Always delighted to be part of Visible Start. The team is brilliant and hugely passionate about what they’re doing – and rightly so.”
“Visible Start is a great programme – gives you a sense of fulfillment and pride and hopefully makes a difference in building skills and confidence in the wonderful women participating.”
“By providing a thoughtful and personal approach to media business mentoring for women seeking a reintroduction to this industry after a significant break from it in their lives, Visible Start do a great job of matching candidates with highly experienced professional mentors from our industry to partake in a well-planned and designed programme of events which ensures that everyone leaves this process with confidence and inspiration.”
“Each session I attended as part of Visible Start, be it a briefing, hosting a presentation or the speed mock interviews, gave me the biggest boost of energy and pride. Despite being a virtual programme, the atmosphere online always felt warm, comfortable and positive. Every woman I interacted with had a brilliant attitude towards the programme which I believe is a clear reflection of Visible Start. ”
“Visible Start was a brilliant programme that I was really excited to be a part of. The opportunity to connect with other women across the industry and support them was really rewarding.”
The talent you need at a cost you can afford. No compromise.
Partner with us to sponsor a Visible Start Programme and benefit from cost-effective recruitment while boosting your DEI impact and long-term workforce sustainability.
At the same time, gain access, for a full year, to our Visible Start Alumni, securing a sustainable pipeline of experienced talent.
Cost-effective recruitment:
The cost of placing 8 midlife women from our programme into your workforce is the same average outlay as recruiting those same 8 roles traditionally.
Diversity, equality and inclusion:
“The business case for diversity, equality, and inclusion (DE&I) is stronger than ever.” McInsey, May 2020. Who are we to argue with McInsey?
Workforce sustainability:
Gen X averages over five years in roles. As you build and plan for long-term impact, midlife women offer your organisation experience, commitment and stability.
What is the Visible Start Programme?
Why is the Visible Start Programme much more than a good headline?
01.
The Visible Start Programme was built for impact, not just great optics
The Programme is a holistic, skills-focused approach that supports midlife women to return to the workforce and contribute in a meaningful, values-add way.
The Programme, created and led by Visible Start, develops the talent organisations need without the complexities of creating their own returners’ programme. At the same time, midlife women get a supported (re)start that allows them to thrive, grow and lead.
The result is a sustainable talent pipeline with the kind of ROI that you only see in headlines.
(Don’t worry: you’ll get the excellent headlines too!)
02.
The Visible Start Programme is flexible, adaptable and, yes, it is a game changer.
The Programme opens up the pool of talented, experienced midlife women with a multitude of transferable skills. The very people that are often missing from a recruitment process that values years of industry-specific experience.
With expert sessions delivered online, the women are supported as they uncover their unique offering and step up into organisations that are ready to turn potential into performance.
03.
No need to ditch your own returners’ programme
Some returners’ programmes don’t work out for a number of reasons. Benefit from our experience building the Visible Start Programme and turn your own programme around.
01.
The Visible Start Programme was built for impact, not just great optics
The Programme is a holistic, skills-focused approach that supports midlife women to return to the workforce and contribute in a meaningful, values-add way.
The Programme, created and led by Visible Start, develops the talent organisations need without the complexities of creating their own returners’ programme. At the same time, midlife women get a supported (re)start that allows them to thrive, grow and lead.
The result is a sustainable talent pipeline with the kind of ROI that you only see in headlines.
(Don’t worry: you’ll get the excellent headlines too!)
02.
The Visible Start Programme is flexible, adaptable and, yes, it is a game changer.
03.
No need to ditch your own returners’ programme
So much more than a simple returners’ programme.
No more expensive than your usual recruitment or training spend.
Head to our Programme page to learn more about the online sessions we deliver to midlife women and how the Programme is a valuable investment for the future.
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Visible Start Consultancy & other services
Visible Start offers strategic consultancy designed to:
- Optimise the performance of your multi-generational workforce.
- Strengthen your DEI initiatives.
- Cut recruitment costs by unlocking the potential of midlife women.
- Upskill and develop AI literacy in your midlife team members.
- Improve upon the work you’ve already done in a ‘Returners’ Programme’ to make your programme a success on all levels.
Visible Start shapes the conversation
The Visible Start Programme has been making headlines for years.
From our groundbreaking partnership with WPP to supporting the careers of hundreds of professional midlife women, the story is one of impact, humanity, and crucially, success.
Here’s how we continue to shape the conversation around midlife women powering the workforce.
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