What is Innovation Women?
Innovation Women is a platform dedicated to increasing the visibility and representation of women on stage at conferences and events. We connect event managers with awesome speakers and subject matter experts who just happen to be women (or other underrepresented groups) to ensure diverse and inclusive events.
We designed our self-service database to provide speaking opportunities for women and underrepresented speakers. 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, podcast guesting and media opportunities. These opportunities help build their brands, grow their businesses and advance their careers. Event managers, conference organizers, podcasters, colleges and universities, and journalists get a free account on the site so they can search the database and connect directly with the speakers.
The origin story of Innovation Women
Innovation Women was founded by Bobbie Carlton and Betsy Dupre as an Innovation Nights project. 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, event organizers 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 supportive community for women entrepreneurs, professional women and technical women.
Innovation Women Timeline
- 2014: Kickstarter
- 2015: Beta launch
- 2017: Organized as an LLC
- 2020: Acquired My Speaker Leads
- 2020: Acquired Lioness Magazine
- 2024: Launched Innovation Women Network online community
- 2024: Added Content Creator accounts
- 2025: Added Entrepreneur accounts
Why Innovation 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 professional 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.
Have more questions? Read our FAQ.
Problems we solve
We solve lack of representation in the public speaking industry. Women are often underrepresented on stages, not because of lack of expertise or interest, but because of systemic barriers to opportunity. Our speaker platform and community focused on gender equity helps connect women and marginalized experts with conferences, podcasts, and events actively seeking diverse voices.
We solve problems for speakers. Speakers of all experience levels will find value in the Innovation Women speaker visibility bureau. Along with our platform of speaking opportunities, which is consistently updated by our event manager members and a team of researchers, we also have a deep bench of education materials and resources, group training offerings and individual coaching options.
We solve problems for event managers. Innovation Women provides a diverse pool of subject matter experts, making it easy for event managers to find the right speaker for their event. We do not charge any fees to event managers to connect with speakers on the platform.
About our founder
Bobbie Carlton is the founder of Carlton PR & Marketing, Innovation Nights and Innovation Women, or, as she calls them, the day job, the night job and the dream job. Carlton is an entertaining, tell-it-like-it-is speaker who speaks extensively (and passionately) about public speaking and how it can be the driving force behind career growth and business success. She’s a TEDx speaker; an entertaining startup event host; she’s spoken at the United Nations; she’s shared the stage with storytelling legend (and NPR’s Snap Judgment host) Glynn Washington; and she’s been on the main stage for some of the world’s best-known conferences for technical and professional women. Carlton has been featured on CBS News, in the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, USA Today and other major media. Through Innovation Nights, Carlton has helped to launch more than 1500 new products for startups who raised more than $4B in funding. She was previously the head of global PR at two different enterprise software companies and the head of marketing for a brand devoted to providing positive role models for preteen girls. She’s inspired thousands of technical, entrepreneurial and professional women to take control of their own speaking careers and has worked with event managers around the world to deliver diverse and inclusive events.
Learn more about Bobbie and meet the rest of the team.
