What was going on a decade ago when it comes to women and conferences?
In January 2015, while Shelley Zalis was kicking off the Women Walk the Floor Tour at #CES, I was working behind the scenes to launch Innovation Women, our #PublicSpeaking platform that helps #EventManagers find more women speakers and subject matter experts. We launched it in May 2015 and since then it has helped thousands of women find more speaking opportunities.
The year prior I had finally gotten fed up enough with the situation on stage at just about every event I attended (heavy emphasis on technology and entrepreneurship) that I sketched out how an online speaker platform could work, crowdfunded the money to get professional developers involved and announced I was going to tackle the problem.
- Event managers can search the Innovation Women database for free. They can filter the thousands of speakers by topic, industry, title, location and more. When they find the right speaker, they can connect directly to them.
- Meanwhile, speakers and subject matter experts get education about every aspect of the speaking world - how to position and pitch themselves, how to find opportunities and how to use our platform.
- We promote what our members are doing - speaking begets speaking and the more speaking you do, the more you will do. Having someone else speak your name is sometimes all it takes for the right opportunities to materialize.
- And we have a supportive online community for our speakers. They help each other.
But what WAS happening in 2014 and 2015? According to the Bizzabo Gender Diversity & Inclusion Report released in 2018, in 2016, 70 percent of all speakers were male. 2014 and 2015 were pretty similar.
Speaking of CES, 2018 was also the year that CES released its all-male keynote lineup to social media ridicule (and 5 of the 6 were white.)
Based on some sampling we've done over the past few years, not much has changed, and anecdotally, the Pandemic saw a lot of backsliding in the industry.
We still have a long way to go to make a difference onstage...and that difference has far-reaching impacts.
Ten years ago, I was frustrated by the lack of women at conferences—and even more so by the absence of women in leadership across industries. So, I decided to do something about it. What started as an idea—calling my girlfriends to walk the floor with me—quickly grew into what is now an annual #CES tradition: the Women Walk the Floor Tour.
That first year, there were just 50 of us. Today, over 300 women joined the walk at #CES2025, and it was truly a sight to see. These women are leaders, changemakers, and champions for #equality, walking the walk in their own lives and leaving the #tech industry—and the world—better than they found it.
This movement inspired me to found The Female Quotient, a global community of women advancing equality together. Because as I always say, a woman alone has power, together we have impact.
A huge thank you to Yahoo for partnering with us to make this year’s walk so special. Here’s to the next 10 years of progress and impact!
Manager, Regulatory Compliance | Product Stewardship, Cross-functional Team Leadership
1moHow can we bring this to our Houston Dow Center location?