While UK businesses have made progress on gender and ethnicity, disability remains under-represented at every level of leadership. At the time of launch, Sara Weller CBE was the only FTSE 100 non-executive director to report with a disability – a signal of how far there was to go.
Employers knew they needed to act, but without a strategy to align people, partners, and priorities, ambition risked stalling. ActionAble 2025 set out to change this: one of the first action-based disability inclusion event of its kind designed to unite employers, leaders, and organisations to inspire and enable measurable progress on disability inclusion across UK plc.
Leaders joined the event
organisations represented
%
made a commitment to act
Approach & solution
ImpactMatch, Sara Weller CBE and 10 partners, built ActionAble 2025 as a national strategy intervention, delivered through a one-day digital event, designed as a movement with frameworks, KPIs, and legacy tools to sustain change.
Impact-measurement built in from day one:
We embedded our Impact Strategy Framework into every stage – from agenda design to audience experience – to generate live data, actionable insight, and longitudinal evidence of change.
We applied the framework to:
- Set the vision: A fully inclusive workplace with fair representation and zero engagement gap.
- Build the roadmap: Six pathways – business case, employee engagement, talent access, inclusive leaders, workplaces that work, and customer connection.
- Embed accountability: Agreed KPIs, live dashboards, and a digital platform with polls, profiles, and metrics to track change.
- Maximise scale: Unified networks that rarely work together (FTSE100s, SMEs, local authorities, charities), creating shared assets.
- Leave a legacy: 145 free resources, 16 hours of expert content, and an Action Planner for organisations to adopt.
ActionAble 2025 Impact Report
We authored a 70-page national report translating the live data and post-event analytics into practical recommendations for boards, policymakers, and employers – a model of how inclusion campaigns can be evidenced, not assumed.
This wasn’t simply an event. It was a strategic campaign architecture, aligning vision, people, and delivery models to move disability inclusion from intent to measurable action.
Impact
action plans downloaded
more confident on disability inclusion
new organisations joined the conversation
Cross-sector coalition
861 leaders engaged from 453 organisations, creating scale no single firm could achieve independently.
Capability shift
Confidence rose up to 50 points in-session; by day’s end, 90% felt more confident on inclusion and 80% on Action Planning.
Practical tools
541 Action Plan downloads signalled strong intent to embed change.
Accountability
94% committed to act, with 88% pledging greater transparency in reporting.
New network
313 organisations joined the disability inclusion conversation for the first time.
Sustained Momentum
The post-event Impact Report, launched at the House of Lords, codified commitments and convened senior leaders to drive the next stage of measurable change.
By aligning vision, frameworks, and measurable action, ImpactMatch catalysed progress on disability inclusion at scale, proving that purpose-driven strategy delivers not just convenings, but movements that build trust, confidence, and long-term impact.
Next steps
To sustain momentum, we built a full integrated content and engagement strategy designed to turn insights into ongoing action:
- Community activation: Created a dedicated ActionAble LinkedIn page and shared post-event content weekly – transforming every session into bite-sized articles, infographics, and key takeaways for the wider ecosystem.
- Learning: Hosted 16 hours of recordings and transcripts on a public YouTube playlist, ensuring accessibility and long-term reach.
- Executive advocacy: Drove visible leadership through strategic storytelling from Sara Weller CBE and Leigh Smyth, using thought-leadership posts, interviews, and video clips to reinforce accountability and amplify the campaign’s three calls to action: Report progress openly. Recruit inclusively. Respect employee voice.
- Continued measurement: Post-event analytics tracked ongoing engagement and impact, informing the ActionAble 2025 Impact Report launched at the House of Lords – now a benchmark resource for boards and policymakers shaping disability inclusion strategies.
“ActionAble was the first event of its kind to bring together such a range, breadth and sheer number of disability inclusion experts in the same virtual room with diverse businesses and Business Disability Forum was proud to be part of it as a key Partner from the start. ImpactMatch put together a great programme of inspiring speakers with a focus on tangible action, finding solutions and making a real impact.”
“It was great to attend the ActionAble Conference on Thursday, to hear you speak and reconnect with colleagues from Scope and Purple Space too!
I left the event inspired and have asked our HR team to report on our disability inclusion initiatives in the next People and Culture report, which I will happily support on to ensure this happens.
Our Network is also focused on working towards Disability Confident Level 2 accreditation, which I believe will further strengthen Schroders’ commitment to disability inclusion.”
“MyPlus was proud to take part in the impactful ActionAble 2025 online conference, founded by Sara Weller. In the lead-up to the event, we supported the conference as an ambassador, and on the day itself, we participated as both a speaker and exhibitor. Powered by Impact Match, the conference delivered valuable insights and practical strategies in a flexible and engaging format – empowering businesses to develop meaningful disability inclusion action plans.
As experts in disability employment, we saw this important event, which brought together influential organisations and individuals, as a key event in our calendar to help drive the creation of inclusive, thriving workplaces where disabled talent can truly flourish.”
“As a large PLC retail employer at the start of our Disability journey, ActionAble 2025 was an inspirational event to review and improve our strategy.”
“We particularly enjoyed the event last week at Houses of Parliament and having an opportunity to connect with such a diverse group of organisations, sharing their experiences and best practices. The event very much embodied the spirit of collaboration and collectiveness with leaders of the disability community and the entire event was impressively well organised, strategic, and focused.
The clear framework Actionable have created demonstrates the importance of the role of disability ERG/Networks as the vehicle for driving disability culture change. As the world’s only networking and development hub specifically for disability ERG/Networks, we are proud to have partnered with Actionable on this milestone project.
It has bee a pleasure working with the team, and I truly value the strong sense of community and shared purpose they fostered.”
“As a result of the event, we’ve finessed our business case and FY30 strategic outcomes to fully encompass the impact on colleagues, customers and the connection to our organisational strategy.”
Let’s work together
Ready to start your own impact journey? From strategy to talent to accelerators, we’ll help you build inclusion, growth, and legacy. Book a discovery call with us.
