Innovation Women is a self-service database designed to provide speaking opportunities for women. It is full of female subject matter experts and professional speakers. Instead of calling it a speaker bureau, we called it a visibility bureau. It connects speakers and experts to all kinds of visibility opportunities, including speaking and media opportunities. These opportunities help build their brands, grow their businesses and advance their careers. Event managers, conference organizers and journalists get a free account on the site so they can search the database and connect directly with the speakers.
Innovation Women was founded by Bobbie Carlton and Betsy Dupre. Bobbie kicked off the effort in 2014 with an end-of-the-year Kickstarter project which helped fund the initial web application. The beta version of the web app was launched in May 2015 and we quickly stocked the shelves with great speakers. Event managers came to browse…and invite speakers to speak. More speakers joined. More conference organizers.
Innovation Women has grown over the years – adding hundreds of speakers and speaking opportunities and making thousands of connections. Now our online database also contains access to hundreds of calls for speakers, and tools to help them manage their opportunities. We offer training and classes, and a community for women entrepreneurs, professional women and technical women.
Why? Because we’ve all been there: an event where the speakers are all or predominantly male, and wondered — where are the women who can also address this topic and bring a different perspective to the discussion? InnovationWomen.com is an online database designed to help event managers find those women and gender balance their panels and speakers. It’s also a way for entrepreneurial, technical and innovative women to get more visibility for themselves, their careers and their companies. Women who speak get connected to more potential customers, partners and funders. It’s a path to faster recognition of your thought leadership and expertise.