From undervalued and overlooked, to securing the reward, respect and influence your work deserves.
The gap doesn't close by working harder. It closes by negotiating.
Apply for a place Download the brochurePay, promotion, authority, opportunity — the negotiations that shape what you're rewarded for, what you're trusted with and what happens next.
Most negotiation training ends the week you finish it, which is almost never the week your negotiation happens.
Two months of method. Ten months of doing it for real.
Because leverage takes months to build, and the timing is something you can influence but rarely control.
Research consistently finds it is riskier for women to act assertively in negotiation. Behaviour that's perfectly acceptable coming from a man triggers backlash when it comes from a woman.
Which means the hesitation you may have been treating as a personal weakness is closer to an accurate reading of the room. Holding back is a rational response to a genuine risk. It's simply a very expensive one — and it isn't the only response available.
Most negotiation training ignores this. It teaches the tactics without accounting for the fact that the same behaviour can land differently coming from a woman.
Negotiating like a woman doesn't mean negotiating softly. It means seeing the game you're actually in — one where the rules aren't applied evenly — and choosing your strategy with that in full view. Sometimes that means being direct, anchoring hard, and letting a silence sit. Sometimes it means framing an ask so that saying yes is easy for the person who has to defend it upstairs.
Often, there's far more you can unlock where you are. Sometimes, though, the honest answer is that you've reached the ceiling of what your current environment will offer you. Knowing which situation you're in changes the strategy.
Think of a negotiation earlier in your career — one where you might have secured more, or didn't realise there was anything to secure. At the time, the difference probably looked modest.
But a lower starting point can follow you. When later rises build on it, the gap compounds.
68 is the State Pension age currently legislated for anyone born after April 1977. Change it if you plan to stop earlier.
what that one conversation could cost you by the time you retire
All figures are in today's money. Inflation has already been taken out, so these are pounds you can compare with your salary now.
Excludes tax, bonuses and pension contributions, all of which would tend to make the real figure larger. Illustrative only, and not financial advice.
And that's one conversation.
Now think about a whole career — every review, offer, promotion and opportunity where the outcome could have been different.
And that's only the money. Negotiating well can also change the authority you have, the opportunities you're offered, the time you keep for yourself and the decisions you get to influence. Those are harder to put a number on.
You've been doing work that's visibly above your grade, and it hasn't translated into anything. You've been told "next year" more than once. You've watched someone less capable be promoted, and been asked to be pleased about it.
You're respected. You're also underpaid, and everyone including you knows it. Or the money is fine and what you actually want is more authority, autonomy or a role that leaves room for a life outside work.
It's about the size of the gap between what you contribute and what comes back — and whether you're ready to do something deliberate about it.
It isn't for you if you'd rather watch than take part, if you want someone to do it for you, or if you'd rather not look at your own part in it.
Eight weekly 90-minute sessions, October to December, built around the CLOSE framework.
What you want next, where the opportunity lies and what needs to change.
The value you create, how others perceive it and who advocates for you.
Parameters, fallbacks, anchors and widening what's on the table.
How to lead the negotiation rather than be led by it.
The mindset and self-regulation to make the ask.
Learn from every negotiation and carry it into the next.
Two live practice sessions in pairs, followed by group review.
Then ten months of applying it. Monthly group surgeries where you bring what's live. Three guest experts through the year, including Emilie Cousteau on executive presence. A private WhatsApp group for what can't wait. Three cohort dinners in London, included and entirely optional. And 1:1 time with me whenever something significant is in play.
These women completed an earlier, shorter version of the programme. The material they describe forms the core of Foundations.
Before, it was absolute one hundred per cent dread — even to the point of thinking I'd rather not do it at all. It hasn't flipped a switch, because I'm still the way I am. But it's given me the confidence not to dread it in that same way.Helen, VP Marketing
I've done negotiation programmes before, as part of wider leadership training. But it never came at it from that angle of — this is why you might be experiencing things differently as a woman negotiating.Maddy, CEO (InsurTech)
I'm much more strategic about the stakeholders I need to engage with. Before, I was just trying the straight approach — I need this. Now there's a deeper thought process about the people around me.Rashmi, Strategic Transformation
I'm Lucy Watson, founder of Negotiate Like a Woman. I've spent 25+ years negotiating in financial services and technology — including at Barclays, Oliver Wyman and as co-founder and Commercial COO of an enterprise technology company.
Closing The Gap grew out of my own experience of discovering that knowing how to negotiate wasn't enough — and digging into the research to understand why.
My full story is in the brochure.
Or ten monthly payments of £375.
Twelve months. No more than eight women. One significant negotiation, handled better, can repay the investment on its own.
You may already have a professional development budget you can use. Negotiation isn't only about securing pay rises — better negotiators create value for their employers too.
Ask me for the Employer Negotiation Brief — a one-page business case written in language that works for them.
On each cohort, I set aside at least one funded place, for a woman who is right for this but for whom the investment isn't possible at the moment.
If that might be you, say so when you apply. It won't count against you.
And if you know someone who should have it — a woman between roles, or rebuilding, or simply at a point where £3,500 isn't available to her — nominate her.
Applications reviewed as they arrive. Applications close 9 October.
Everything above, in detail — the full programme structure, the session plan, what's included, and how the year runs.