Once a year, EPBN’s Board and team put everything else aside and meet in person. This September, our hosts were MozaiQ in Bucharest. And the conversation spanned everything from Role Models to the future of workplace equality across Europe.

For three days at the end of September 2026, EPBN’s Board and staff gathered at MozaiQ’s headquarters in Bucharest for our annual retreat. It is the only moment in the calendar when all of us are in the same room, and we use it properly: to reflect, plan, strategise and — often enough — to disagree productively about how EPBN can best protect LGBTQIA+ workplace equality across Europe.

Looking ahead and evaluating flagship initiatives

Much of the weekend was spent looking forward. We discussed EPBN’s expansion strategy and took a hard look at each of our flagship initiatives — the European Role Models program, the Mentoring Program, the Inclusion Awards for companies, our research work, and our advocacy at EU and Council of Europe level. For every one of them we asked the same questions: is this working, how do we measure whether it is, and how does it translate on the ground in each member’s own country? Alongside that, we looked at how EPBN can better support member organisations as they grow, and how we can represent them more effectively in European institutions.

We also began sketching out the year ahead. A long list of events is already taking shape for the coming months, and we spent considerable time on our 2027 Conference & Awards Ceremony — working through how to make it, once again, the flagship gathering for workplace equality in Europe. Several new programmes, upgrades and improvements were prepared, all with the same purpose: making sure our members and LGBTQIA+ workers can build workplaces that are safe, accepting and productive. Whether that workplace is a family firm, a public institution, a start-up or a multinational.

Strengthening European connection and collaboration

And then there was the part that does not appear on any agenda. Our Board and team are scattered across Europe by design. To be close to our members, our partner organisations and the institutions we work with. We come from very different countries and very different professional backgrounds. Being in one room, over dinner in Bucharest as much as in the meeting itself, is a reminder of how much that diversity gives us. The mission has never been in doubt. Championing workplace equality is what brings us together.

“These three days gave us something no screen or video call ever could. Beyond clarifying our strategic priorities and sharpening questions about our flagship programs, the real magic was simply being in the same room. We leave Bucharest not just as colleagues with a shared plan, but as a much stronger, genuinely aligned, and closely-knit team ready to take on whatever comes next together.”
— Tereza Kadlecová, General Manager, EPBN

“EPBN’s strength has always been its members. This was the first retreat where our board sat down together with our new staff team, and working as one group, at this scale, for the first time, showed me just how much EPBN has grown. Bucharest was about making sure our structures, our programs and our voice in Brussels genuinely serve our members, and I leave more convinced than ever that we are building something built to last.”
— Matthias Weber, Chairman, EPBN

Thank you

A retreat like this only works because of the people in the room. Our sincere thanks to everyone who gave up a weekend, travelled across the continent, and brought their energy and honesty to three intense days.

To our volunteer Board: Matthias Weber (Chairman, Germany), Christophe Margaine (Vice-chairman, France), Silvia Spinelli (Italy), Luca Condosta (Italy), Lukas Burian (Austria) and Monika Antanaityte (Lithuania). To our amazing team: Tereza Kadlecová, Filip Milde, Ana Mohr, Jaime Romaní, Pavlo Stroblja and Lucia Urciuoli. And to our hosts: Vlad Viski and everyone at MozaiQ, for opening their headquarters to us, sharing their work in Romania, and making us feel at home in Bucharest. We will be back in May.

What comes next

The retreat closed with a set of concrete commitments for the months ahead:

• A new strategic plan. Work begins on EPBN’s Strategic Plan for 2027–2030, built on the goals agreed in Bucharest.
• Flagship programs, sharpened. Role Models, Mentoring, Inclusion Awards and Advocacy all move forward with clearer targets and better ways of measuring impact.
• New initiatives in 2027. Including the EPBN Pride Ambassadors program, the Advocacy & Communications Academy and Mentoring Labs.
• Bucharest, May 2027. Planning is underway for the EPBN Conference & Awards Ceremony, returning to Bucharest with MozaiQ as our host. More exciting news coming.
• Events before then. Member and European events in October and November keep the momentum going through the rest of the year.