Warsaw Creatives’ Post

🗣 For International Women's Day 2024, I hope brands talk about themselves less. Watching advocacy days become a hollow shell of the issues they represent can be disheartening. Systemic gendered issues exist well beyond the corporate echo chamber, and good intentions - particularly those contained to one fleeting day of value signalling - are not nearly enough. Rather than screaming into the void of branded cupcakes and forced team photos, I suggested some more impactful alternatives to PRWeek UK: 🗻 Less tip, more iceberg: Put substance before symbolism by internally engaging with issues of pay equity, unconscious bias, and boardroom representation through education, accountability, and dialogue. 👭 Outsource expertise: Rather than pigeonholing the most senior female in your office, amplify the insights of external experts and diverse perspectives. 👊 Put your money where your mouth is: Put the time and resources required for a (lackluster) branded exercise towards organisations actively tackling systemic gendered issues. Consider handing over your well-earned digital footprint to causes that can use that visibility for good. Check out the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eiqNfTHt

This email landed in my inbox an hour ago and I’ve been ranting about it in my head ever since. Because this is something I’ve been shouting about for a while. In the last 6 months, I’ve attended 4 marketing conferences with 100+ attendees at each one. In every room, at every conference, I’d say about 15-20% of the people there were women. The %’s for the speakers was even worse. Two of them didn’t have any female speakers, at all. The other two? 2-3 female speakers each, in a line up of 12-15 entrepreneurs. Every time, I was incensed. Because I KNOW there are hundreds, if not thousands of incredible, inspirational, successful women in the UK alone, who could have been invited to speak, but they weren’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is a deliberate intention. But I think the fact that these huge organisations are able to pull together a line up of speakers and NOT recognise the imbalance, says enough. So, it’s great that Jon has recognised this and added more female speakers… at least now when I attend AdCon in May, I won’t feel so irritated at the lack of representation. But the cynical side of me can’t help but notice the timing of this email too. The day before #InternationalWomensDay The issue is, you shouldn’t have to TRY to be inclusive, you just should be. Situations like this just highlight the fact that so many men don’t take value from women within their industries. They may respect us, sure... But do they follow us? Do they look up to us? Do they listen to us? It’s 2024 and we’re still having to fight to be invited to the table. #InspireInclusion

Earlier this week, we played a part in rewriting history -- literally. ✍🏿 📖 🖋 On Tuesday 26th, we joined the 12th edition of the Edit-a-Thon, under the theme "Women in Tech” at Ringier Pressehaus 👩🏾💻🔭🧪🔎🔬👩🏾🔧 This important initiative aims at driving the representation of women on Wikipedia. Stay tuned as we share the articles we wrote about women of African Heritage soon! In the meantime, enjoy the video recap. Thank you EqualVoice for the invitation and your warm hospitality. We had a blast! And thank you Maphrida Wehrli, Claire Murigande, PhD EMBA, Dr. Chantelle Brandt Larsen DBA, MA, MCIPD🇸🇭🇦🇮🇬🇧🇨🇭♾️🌈🧠 (and your daughter Ellouise), Donya Hardan, Zanab Traore and Dr. Marta Ra for representing PROWAH and contributing with articles about women of African Heritage. Let's continue reshaping the narrative together ✨

What an amazing INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY (MARCH 8) event run by Startmate and Fishburners! We heard from 2 incredible panelists, 💼🧚♂️ Vinisha Rathod and Doone Roisin who were so vulnerable in sharing their experiences so openly and honestly and are both such rays of light in this world. A few gems from their amazing insights: 💎 Dive into your interests: Explore areas that intrigue you, and be open to pivot towards what truly resonates with your passion. It’s about finding what you like, sometimes by encountering what you don’t. 💎 Be action-oriented: Embrace forward movement. Seek environments where you feel welcomed and understood, and always remember the 'why' behind your daily actions. 💎 Shift from survival to thrival: This allows you to think beyond the day-to-day to your future. 💎 I loved the advice Doone gave to 'not be crippled by perfection' and 'stop stopping', i.e., give things a real chance to flourish and give yourself enough time to get a great dataset before making the decision to give up. Fabulous job moderating Mia Millman and emceeing Kelly Spoerk! Looking forward to hearing more about Ladymates! 💜 💜 💜

Wondering what our CEO Loren Tomlinson has been getting up to? Take a look below!

Women for Elections have some great online workshops over the next couple of months to equip women with the tools to run for public office. For most, running for any level of government is giant leap into unfamiliar territory, honing in on campaign skills is a great way to build your confidence and impact. #WFE #ALGWAWA #supportingwomen #localgovernment

Two amazing courses offered by ECWO which will help you advance your career! Have a look at the below.

Queen, Do you want to expose your service to corporations looking to do business with woman-owned, operated and controlled companies? If your answer is "YES!", now is the time to jump in for an experience of a lifetime- the Women Consulting Corporate Pitch Competition! Let's talk about the ultimate showdown, your pitch will be evaluated on: ✨ Clarity of your presentation. ✨  Your ability to identify the problem that is being solved by your company’s service. ✨Your ability to describe how your company’s services solve the aforementioned problem. ✨ How clearly you present the expertise your company has in providing that solution. ✨ How well you identify the industry/type of companies your service is designed to serve and why. ✨ How well you respond, in the moment, to questions from the panel of judges.   Plus get your community and network involved by earning public votes. The exposure that you will receive by applying is priceless- making this a win, win opportunity! Apply now and learn more at https://bit.ly/2024-pitch.

A happy crowd finishing of the third and last day of TheWeek on this Friday afternoon. A brilliant way to kick of the weekend! Thank you so much to my wonderful colleges Ida-Marie Ronby Olsen, Valeria Guerrieri Fussinger, John Byrd and Erik Simon Vuoritie for joining TheWeek, it has been a pleasure to have the conversations with you and inspiring to hear your ideas and thoughts. I feel inspired and grateful for TheWeek because it makes LessTalkMoreAction fun and engaging instead of a dreadful, boring task. Furthermore, TheWeek points out how most change in society has usually come from "bottom-up", so from actions made by individuals like you and me. Just take the examples of the revolution taking down the king to get democracy, how women got voting rights, and how the civil rights movement in the US could take place. Back in the day, democracy, voting rights for both women and men and civil rights to all seemed completely unrealistic. These historic events were all made possible due to normal folks like you and me who rolled up their sleeves and started taking action instead of just talking. They didn't sit around passively and waiting for somebody else to do it for them. This is truly uplifting because all these historic events are good examples that change can happen rapidly within years and change up our entire society, and that it matters to act. Also as an individual. And I for sure do know, that I want to push forward the green transition by being as loud, engaging and vocal about it as possible. And I for sure want to hear your takes on things as well. Therefore I am already gonna kick of a new TheWeek ... This Sunday! Do you want to join, or do you know someone who would like to join? Then please write me a comment here below or a message. The three conversations will be online on Teams: Day 1: This Sunday, 26th of May at 14:00-14:45. You have already watched the first movie before the meeting starts. Day 2: 29th of May from 20:00-20:45. You have watched the second movie before we meet. Day 3: 4th of June from 20:00-20:45. You have watched the third movie before we meet. Please check out more about TheWeek at TheWeek.ooo

😵💫 "Why didn’t you bring this up?" someone once asked me when I complained about yet another male-dominated panel at an event. I didn’t have an answer at the time, but deep down, I knew: I was simply afraid. Afraid of spoiling relationships. Afraid of being seen as just another woman raising her voice about her rights —not that there’s anything wrong with that, but for some reason, that image felt unappealing. Afraid of seeming foolish. After all, what's so wrong with men sharing their opinions during the conference’s most important session? Afraid of being noticed. But then I started to reflect. Why didn’t I bring it up? If I feel this way, why not speak out? If I don’t, maybe no one will—for the exact same reasons. I recalled another moment. A female speaker refused to participate in a conference because the rest of the program was overwhelmingly male. What a powerful example! She wasn’t afraid to voice her opinion. She wasn't afraid to take a statement. She wasn’t even afraid to turn down a paid opportunity. We can all learn from that—men and women alike. I want to see women leading the conversation, on stage, at the forefront of conference agendas. And if I don’t see that, I’m not attending. Thank you for your invitation. #freelancebusiness #eventprofs #femaleleaders