Acquisition Includes Access to Thousands of Event Managers and Event Leads
(Boston – June 17, 2020) Today, Innovation Women announced the acquisition of My Speaker Leads, an online resource that provides speakers with 100 speaking opportunity leads every week. Innovation Women will be using My Speaker Leads to build on its offerings and offer new services. Financial details were not disclosed in the private sale.
Founded by professional speaker Matt Ward, My Speaker Leads is a service for speakers who focus on paid speaking opportunities. The My Speaker Leads research team gives speakers more than 100 leads weekly.
“My Speaker Leads has an enormous database of speaking opportunities and event managers looking to hire speakers,” said Bobbie Carlton, founder and CEO of Innovation Women. “Combining this with our existing database will help Innovation Women continue to provide our speakers with opportunities, even as the events world undergoes a forced evolution. Event managers have had to cancel, postpone or go virtual. Having free access to a database of great speakers and subject matter experts like Innovation Women helps them move forward efficiently.
“In addition, we can now reach even more event managers with our message of diversity and inclusion. According to industry data, the majority of speakers at many conferences and events are still white men. Innovation Women is designed to help event managers be more inclusive and easily find speakers from underrepresented groups.”
“My Speaker Leads is a reflection of my own process of securing speaking engagements,” said My Speaker Leads founder Matt Ward. “During my research, I found so many speaking opportunities that weren’t appropriate for me that I built a business around sharing those leads with other speakers.”
Ward continued, “Innovation Women will provide my customers with new opportunities and I’m proud to be able to contribute to the mission of getting more women on stage at conferences and events.”
Innovation Women (men too) provides its speaker members with a complete speaker platform, including access to calls for speakers. It makes it easy for event managers to connect directly with diverse speakers and avoid “manels” (all male panels). InnovationWomen.com includes:
- Searchable speaker profiles (more than 1500 speakers). Event managers (more than 4000 on the platform) can search by topic, industry, title, keyword, or location to find speakers.
- Supporting promotional services (including an Amazon bookstore for women authors) and a significant social media reach.
- An exclusive weekly speaker email highlighting new Calls for Speakers on the platform.
- An informative weekly newsletter for the general public promoting member speaking engagements.
- Speaker resources.
- A members-only Facebook group and a webinar series featuring IW speakers.
- COMING SOON – a speaker showcase and virtual summit.
About Innovation Women
Innovation Women is a self-service online platform designed to connect entrepreneurial, technical and professional women with event managers in order to provide gender balance onstage at conferences and events. Innovation Women speakers and subject matter experts benefit from visibility and new opportunities. Event managers benefit from the opportunity to create more inclusive, gender-balanced and diverse events. Learn more at https://innovationwomen.com/.
