Dear Event Manager - You Have a Problem

Dear Event Manager,

We’ve been contacted by several members of your potential audience because they feel that you might need some assistance connecting with more female speakers. Looking at your website, it does seem like you have had several events with few to no female speakers and overall, diversity might be an issue.

Getting more diversity onstage makes for better conversations – more viewpoints and perspectives represented. It helps you avoid the distractions of negative social media posts and poor media coverage. This type of attention can hurt your ability to get sponsors and attendees.

Innovation Women is free for you to use to connect with industry experts. We have a number of potential speakers who might be good options for your event. We have more than 1500 speakers on the platform and can connect you with many more through our extended network. Event managers can post calls for speakers or simply invite specific speakers. We try to make it very easy for the event managers. You can search by topic, industry, location, even where the speakers went to college.

Happy to do a demonstration for you. Let me know how we can help, Bobbie

Dear Reader - I can not tell you how many times a week I send out this letter. Let's just say, it's a lot. A lot more than you might think. I'm not here to shame people. I'm here to help. But ignore me and keep on producing events like "this" and gloves are coming off.

I get that YOUR industry is devoid of women. I get that you asked several women and they turned you down. (Your website showing three years of events with a grand total of 4 women might have something to do with that.)

I was once tasked with finding a cyber-security startup founder who could talk about bug bounties. (I found two and I'm sure there are many more.) I can find someone to speak at your conference too.

You also don't even have to talk to me - sign up for a free account on Innovation Women and use it.