Image courtesy of rawpixel.com / Freepik.

Today marks International Women’s Day (IWD), a global celebration commemorating the historical, cultural, political, and social achievements of women. IWD has been celebrated around the world for over a century—in fact, the first IWD gathering happened in 1911 and drew more than a million people campaigning for women’s rights.

As we continue the fight for gender equality, let us celebrate the efforts and achievements of the many strong women worldwide doing their part to make a positive difference in the lives of all women everywhere.

Celebrating thought leaders.

Where you might have seen them:

Developer Week - Annie Scranton, President and Founder, Pace PR
SaaStr Annual - SC Moatti, Founding Partner, Mighty Capital
Ascent SaaS Series: Spotlight on Human Capital - Abby Hamilton, Chief People Officer, LiveIntent
RampUp - Tracy Benson, CEO & Co-Founder, Obsesh

Where you can find them next:

SXSW - Michelle Gonzalez, CVP & Global Head, M12 | Monica Long, General Manager, RippleX
Women Tech Global Conference - Annie Scranton, President and Founder, Pace PR
Digital Summit San Francisco - Jamie Grier, Chief Marketing Officer, Ceros
MAU Connect - SC Moatti, Founding Partner, Mighty Capital
Banking Transformation Summit - Sendi Young, Managing Director, Europe, Ripple

Bringing visibility to the stage.

At cred, our event management team plays a role in confirming speakers for clients’ event agendas. In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift to prioritize gender balance. During the planning period for events, our goal is to have at least 50% of speakers be women. More and more, clients are prioritizing this as well, as we increasingly see them bring in their own goals to target around gender balance.

It is clear that attendees take notice as well. We’ve seen an uptick in the amount of Tweets, LinkedIn posts, and general event buzz when an event does a particularly great job on speaker representation—and even more when they do not.

Ensuring there is gender and diversity balance at your event allows for varying perspectives on discussion topics. It is no surprise that conversations are more dynamic when people from different backgrounds, countries, and walks of life are involved in the debate. It only enhances the dialogue to pivot from ‘manels’ to a mix of women, men, LGBTQI individuals, and BIPOC.

We ended 2021 with progress: 43% of the speakers we worked with on events were women. Though we fell slightly shy of the 50% goal, we still consider this a success, as it is certainly a movement in the right direction. But we won’t quit—cred will continue to emphasize the importance of this metric for the rest of the 2022 and beyond.