While the month of March—and in particular March 8—represents an international celebration of women’s accomplishments, pursuit of equality, and strides toward breaking the glass ceiling, here at cred we’re committed to prioritizing women’s empowerment year-round.
We’re celebrating International Women’s Day by highlighting a few of cred’s fierce female speakers.
A classic scene from The Sandlot echoes across generations: Ham and Phillips on a baseball field, dueling it out in a war of words. A string of insults bubble up into one final blow, the comeback to end it all: “You play ball like a girl.”
If only Ham or Phillips could be so lucky.
Last week, we had the pleasure of attending the GUILD’s annual women’s summit Serendipity. Held at the General’s Residence at Fort Mason in San Francisco, the one-day conference gathered women across diverse backgrounds and experiences to share their inspiring stories on entrepreneurship, leadership, investing, and emerging industries.
With an agenda packed with workshops, experiences, 1:1 mentorship, and engaged talks, Serendipity offered attendees the opportunity to curate their own schedules and address individual needs for personal and professional growth. The energy of the venue radiated an inviting atmosphere, bringing together an exciting mix of backgrounds and a feeling of mutual support among the attendees. If you weren’t in a conference room attending a session, there was ample opportunity to network and engage with fellow attendees and women professionals.
Serendipity kicked off the morning with workshops tackling challenges felt by many emerging professionals today—from effective techniques to reduce stress to networking for introverts. The agenda continued with panels and talks from inspiring women across industries including tech, food, health, and investing.
Sara Holtz, host of podcast Advice to My Younger Me, led an intimate workshop about the power in pushing back, and how saying “no” is a critical work and life still. She shared specific advice on how to confidently and effectively say “no,” and questions we can ask ourselves to make sure our decisions mirror our values and prioritize our wellbeing.
“What are you giving up by saying ‘yes’?” — Sara Holtz
Lunch was sponsored by catering company Chewse, whose founder and CEO Tracy Lawrence spoke on panel discussing “The Future of Food.” Tracy spoke alongside Copia Founder and CEO Komal Ahmad and BiteUnite Founder Patta Arkaresvimun, with Parsnip Founder and CEO Sally Rogers as moderator. The panelists shared their perspectives on using food to connect to communities, addressing touchpoints from catering to cooking to food waste management.
The day continued with engaging talks from speakers such as Hint Founder and CEO Kara Goldin, who chatted through her journey on fighting for consumer rights around clean water, and Spero Ventures Partner Ha Nguyen, who discussed how to think like an investor, and the dos and don’ts when raising capital.
The day celebrated, educated, and inspired us in the power of women, and left us with the drive to harness our own strength to become better leaders of tomorrow—proving that perhaps, in baseball and in life, it isn’t so bad to play ball like a girl.
Happy International Women’s Day! Across the world, March 8 marks a global event for women and men to celebrate the “social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.”
Here at cred, we are proud to partner with a number of dynamic women speakers across industries to help share their stories, wisdom, and unique perspectives on what’s next in innovation and entrepreneurship. As a women-led company ourselves, cred recognizes the importance of having strong female leaders who are not afraid to rattle their industries and inspire movements for generations to come.
According to the 2018 Pew Research Center’s Data on Women Leaders study, only 4.8 percent of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies were held by women. We hope to see this number grow over time as we continue to work with outstanding female leaders to give them a platform to broadcast their voice. (Related: credTen: Top Ten Conferences in Female Entrepreneurship)
Today, we celebrate the amazing women we see on the stage, in our office, and around the world.
See below for a sample of some of our amazing women speakers.
Know a female founder whose voice should be amplified? Send them our way hello@credpr.com.
Here at cred, we pride ourselves on working with passionate and accomplished speakers. In particular, we work with a number of inspiring female founders who are blazing trails and creating lasting impact within their industries. From advertising to artificial intelligence and machine learning, women are disrupting, innovating and paving the way for female leadership.
In this edition of our credTen series, we’re featuring the top 10 events worth checking out for female entrepreneurs.
BlogHer Creators Summit
August 8 - 9 | New York
#BlogHer18 Creators Summit will gather 2,000 attendees to celebrate women telling their stories to inspire and educate communities across the globe. Focused on the blogging and social media industries, the conference will feature talks from Jessica Alba, Gabrielle Union, Uzo Aduba, and more.
Tickets: $350*
Grace Hopper Celebration
September 26 - 28 | Houston
Named in honor of Grace Hopper, an American computer scientist and pioneer in computer programming (she invented one of the first compiler related tools), the Grace Hopper Celebration is an annual gathering of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront.
Tickets: $1,150*
Yellow Conference
August 23 - 24, 2018 | Los Angeles
Hosted in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, Yellow Conference is a gathering of 500 women who desire to fight for a better tomorrow; the ones who are willing to roll up their sleeves, step out in courage, and use their creativity for good. This year’s theme is “Our Ownership” and will explore what it means to own our stories, dreams, visions, passions, and abilities we have.
Tickets: $377*
Create & Cultivate
August 25, 2018 | Chicago
A one-day conference with a focus to entertain, enlighten, and inform women around key topics surrounding #sidehustle life, the ever-changing digital landscape, entrepreneurship, and the real talk that comes with being a modern working woman.
Tickets: $350*
Brit + Co #CreateGood
August 24 - September 24, 2018 | Los Angeles
October 17 - 21, 2018 | New York City
Brit + Co’s #CreateGood experience is a digital, social, and experiential conversation leaning into these needs and empowering women to be their best selves. Hosted in both LA and NYC, the event will feature talks by world-class speakers, creativity workshops, live performances, and more.
Tickets: $35*
Startup Grind Global Conference
February 12 - 13, 2019 | San Jose
With 5,000 founders and investors, more than 40 keynote and fireside sessions, and over 50 exhibiting startups, this is Startup Grind's largest event. Over two days of programing, the entrepreneurs in the audience will hear stories, tactics, and lessons learned from founders from companies like LinkedIn, Slack, and Tesla.
Tickets: $255*
Watermark Conference for Women
February 22, 2019 | San Jose
The mission of the Watermark Conference for Women is to promote, communicate, and amplify the influence of women in the workplace and beyond. The organization was founded 25 years ago and this will be their 5th year hosting the conference, with past events featuring motivational talks and educational programming from the likes of Amal Clooney, Hillary Clinton, and Diane von Furstenburg.
Tickets: $225*
Stand Up Lift Up - PBWC Annual Conference
April TBD | San Francisco
At last year’s event, PBWC convened 6,000 attendees for a sold-out and content-rich day of powerful conversations about equality, diversity and change. Keynotes included Rosie Rios, former Treasurer of the United States, Maria Shriver, author & activist, and Jane Fonda, award-winning actress.
Tickets: $TDB
Forbes Women’s Summit
June TBD | New York
Featuring keynote conversations, panel discussions, one-on-one interviews and speaker spotlights, the Forbes Women’s Summit brings together the voices and insights of a diverse range of female luminaries from the worlds of business, entertainment and politics.
Tickets: Invite Only- Request to Attend!
Inc. Women’s Summit
TBD | New York
Surround yourself with savvy female business leaders with diverse backgrounds, passions, and pursuits for a day of dynamic exchanges and innovative business ideas. Speakers will share their stories—and lessons learned along the way—about defying the odds and reinventing business their own way.
Tickets: $TBD
*Standard/general registration rates at time of publication.
Last week, we participated in the “Watermark’s Silicon Valley Conference for Women,” a full day event with 6,500 attendees and 100 speakers coming together to discuss equality in the workforce. The conference filled the San Jose Convention Center with passion, inspiration, and gratitude.
What made this conference stand out? The passion, candid and painfully honest discussions:
Actress, author, director and producer Mindy Kaling shared an early career story of how she sold a TV pilot she’d written based on her life, yet had to audition for the part she created of herself. If that wasn’t infuriating, her agent encouraged her to lose 20 pounds and that she was “just one juice cleanse away” from the part.
Athlete Abby Wamback shared her regrets and how she wished she did more when it comes to equal pay: “There will come a time in your life where you will turn the chapter and you will be angry that you didn’t rock the boat enough.”
This comes off the heels of a complaint that she wasn’t part of, when the Women’s U.S. Soccer Team filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over pay discrepancies.
From political science undergrad to the Vice President and Chief Inclusion and Collaboration Officer with Cisco, Shari Slate opened up about how she forged her career to achieve her professional renaissance. She encouraged attendees to fill your life tangible moments that matter, recognize your difference, find your strengths (your true strengths, not what other people think you are good at) and round it out with a purpose.
About Watermark
Watermark is a community of executive women in the San Francisco Bay Area, whose mission is to increase the representation of women at executive levels to drive innovation, human development and economic growth. Celebrating its 21st anniversary this year, the Watermark vision is to ensure women are able to make their mark in and for their companies, their careers and their communities by providing programs focused on connection, development and advocacy.
cred | n. 1. The quality of being trusted or believed in.
2. Commanding a level of respect due to experience or knowledge.
Welcome to cred's first ever blog post. We've been behind the scenes working hard on building both our brand but more importantly the brands of those we're working with, and we've now decided to share some of our thoughts and learnings with you. Be on the lookout for articles on how to become a better speaker, recapping recent events and conferences, and tips that we've learned along the way.
Here's a bit more about us:
What We Do. We connect individuals to speaking opportunities. We like to think of ourselves as a nonconventional PR firm; we supplement and enhance – rather than replace – any existing efforts. It’s pretty simple.
I was always taught to focus on one thing and do it really well. Here at cred, we chose to focus on something we don’t think others prioritize enough: speaking & events. Our hyper-focus allows us to be masters at matchmaking events with speakers; and because we do it all day long, we've gotten to be pretty darn good at it.
We also help people run and manage better events, from sourcing engaging speakers to creating content to onsite execution. Since we see firsthand the insides of event organization, communication (and what can be done better), we thought naturally, we could do it ourselves.
Why We Do It. This brings us to the core of what we do - the why. Successful companies are built on solid foundations, and here’s ours: We believe that bringing knowledgeable, passionate speakers to engaged audiences builds awareness and excitement for you and your brand. It raises your profile and positions you and your brand as thought leaders in whatever industry you operate in. We thrive on working with quality, passionate speakers that tell a story. Long-term, we’re on a mission to become the most valued, recognized and respected source for events and speaking opportunities.
In less than 10 months, we’ve created an amazing team of 9 individuals and over 60 clients who see that value too. Most of the clients we work with understand how the power of speaking can strengthen and generate business opportunities. Our clients acknowledge that speaking is:
An efficient way to increase brand awareness - whether it’s for potential business partners, customers, financiers, employees, recruiters, investors or all of the above.
Visibility into the company, the individual, and their credibility.
Most importantly, a means to drive business growth. The majority of successful conversations happen face-to-face (this is why VCs tend to meet in-person). Taking advantage of speaking opportunities can accelerate conversations and get things moving.
What We Don’t Do. We’re not a speakers bureau. We don’t seek placements for the sake of it, and we don’t get paid per placement. We believe in earning speaking opportunities based on your knowledge, insight and experience. We serve as an extension of your Marketing and Comms Teams.
One-offs. We won’t help you ‘slip’ into just a single event. We create a comprehensive and all encompassing speaking program so we can help you move the marketing needle - not just once, but time and time again.
We want to work with people who believe in the power of their personal brand. If this sounds like you, come and chat with us, and let’s build your cred together.
-Caitlin
p.s. I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback: caitlin@credpr.com.
