50/50 Gender Parity
Challenge
We are a small company with under 10 full time employees. However, as a media and events company focused on positive change, we are leveraging our platform to amplify many of the action categories covered by the CEO pledge. The main focus of our efforts at this time revolves around bringing the issues of gender equality and parity in tech and business leadership to the forefront in our media coverage as well as in the execution of our own NewCo produced events.
Actions
For NewCo’s Executive Conference - Shift Forum, a conference which covers many topics but has a focus on technology’s impact on business and our society, we are aiming for 50/50 gender parity in our speaker lineup and audience demographic. The programming team is actively seeking out women in leadership roles to speak at our event and the marketing team is actively targeting women business associations and groups, often offering discounts on registration.
Outcomes
For our first conference in 2017, we came close to the mark with a 40/60 gender ratio, which we felt was a great accomplishment for a tech related event and we hope to meet our goals for 2018 and set an example for the industry as a whole.
Quote
We are not only committed to diversity in our speaking lineup because it’s the right thing to do, it’s also just smart business. Forcing ourselves, and our audiences, to identify and promote diverse points of view creates a stronger and more challenging conversation, which in turn fosters a more resilient business climate.