Angels, Allies & Angst: A Manel Story

Recently, a local angel investor shared a redacted email with me and a small group of other “interested parties.”

He had been invited to participate in a panel discussion — a manel. (And, if you are unfamiliar with the term, that’s an all-male panel, a ridiculous situation in this day and age. It says that the event organizers couldn’t find a suitable woman for the panel.) 

His response to the invitation was to share his commitment to not participate in panels like this, especially ones where the panelists were all white men. Instead, he suggested the names of several women he knew who would fit the bill. 

The response from the organizer? “We didn't mean to exclude women. We didn't know anyone to ask.” 

I’m not buying this - it’s an excuse, and a poor one.

The more accurate response is, “It never occurred to us to specifically recruit a woman.” With the follow-up, “We will try to do better on future panels.”

That’s why we need to call out manels when we see them. Event organizers need to be made aware that they’re part of a systemic problem before they can step up to do something about it.

If the organizer has truly tapped out his network (pronoun intentional), there are many resources that will help.

Innovation Women was created specifically to solve this problem. Our free-for-event-managers database (SERIOUSLY, IT’S FREE FOR YOU) has literally thousands of speakers and subject matter experts, covering 190 industries, more than 7000 topics, in every state in the country and more than 50 other countries.

Event organizers can search the database by topic, industry, location, and title. Profiles contain headshots, biographies, links to social media, videos, topics covered, example talks and more. Many of them are speakers and subject matter experts who speak for visibility for themselves and their company. Innovation Women is not a traditional bureau. Our speakers can choose from several designations based on how and if they get compensated. Assuming the profile of our emailer, I found appropriate local speakers in about 10 seconds.

I raised money for Innovation Women in 2014 and rolled out the platform in 2015. We’ve grown the platform tremendously over the years and currently have:

• Thousands of active members – speakers and subject matter experts. (And event managers, conference organizers, podcasters, journalists, etc. who HAVE found us and use the free tools we provide.)
• A weekly newsletter that goes out to 25,000 people
• Weekly Zoom drop-in meetings
• Hundreds of hours of education, resource sheets and lessons
• An active private community where speakers connect online
• An active social media presence showcasing our speakers in action, and…
• So much more.

In 2020, Innovation Women acquired Lioness Magazine, a digital magazine for female entrepreneurs. Lioness regularly features stories about startups, entrepreneurship, investing and investors.

Given all this, you'd expect that this resource, especially in the Boston area where I’m well known and frequently speak at events, would be more on certain people's radar.

OK, maybe you didn’t know (or think) about Innovation Women. But somehow, you also missed out on these resources as well:

• A little thing called Google, the world’s largest search engine. Don’t know about Google? There’s also Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo.
• Social media, LinkedIn in particular, where you can easily search by location, industry, title and more.
• Convenient published lists like the BostInno 50 on Fire awards, the Boston Business Journal Book of Lists, and various award programs designed to help showcase diverse talents.
• Or just asking a friend or colleague who might be a little more aware of all the options available to you, including Innovation Women, the tool specifically designed to solve this problem.

We’re shining a light on issues like this because, well, the light bulb has to know it’s burnt out before it can change.

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