led companies. It was around then that I started to notice differences. Then, working in marketing and PR, these are areas that are stereotypically a ‘female job.’ Someone at IBC called me a ‘marketing girl,’ and that tipped me over the edge. I thought, ‘I run a million-pound-a-year company, I’m not a ‘girl’’! Another big realisation came when I had my son. My husband also works in the industry, and we’d go to shows together and people would ask, ‘who’s looking after your son?’ Not to mention that, when I was pregnant, people would close their contracts with me since they didn’t think I’d be fit for the job. I returned from maternity leave and joined Women in Film and TV, which was great. But then I realised we had two meetings a year at NAB and IBC, which I thought was odd because there were many women that weren’t being catered for. So I said: ‘Can I do a Women in Film and TV Tech version?’ I originally called it FBI (Females in the Broadcast Industry), and it was after the initial few meetings at IBC that I started thinking we’d really got something. I met a woman named Lesley Johnson, who works at BBC Studios. At the time, IBC ran an executive programme where participants would go in two days before – and she was the only woman among 90 attendees. We sat there and agreed that somebody had to do something about this. We decided FBI was great, but it was a bit too playful and not ready to launch in America – and that we needed to do this globally. I knew I wanted it to be something more than just a group of women having a drink and a moan about men. After a few more events, a website and brand refresh to Rise, we launched the mentoring programme, which is now on its seventh cohort. If you look at where Rise is today, we are set up in North America and New Zealand, with a European group chapter, an Indian chapter, one in the north of England and plans to launch soon in the south-west of England. This year, the mentoring programme involved 220 women across the world and is a highly sought-after course. I always wanted to do something with the C-suite. The number of women on the C-level is at around 12% in our sector, so having a programme specifically for them was important to me. We launched in January, and it features an amazing group of women. We’ve also launched Strive to Rise, which is for companies to get an accreditation for their gender diversity practices. There’s also the Rise Awards – now in its sixth year – which serves to celebrate the achievements of women across broadcast and media tech. Additionally, there’s the recently launched Panel Plus initiative, which looks at going to event organisers and ensuring that there are no male-only panels. We’ve found that a big issue when getting women onto panels is a lack of confidence – to address this, we’ve partnered with Mark Harrison from the DPP. Another issue is that women are often brought in to moderate rather than participate on the panel itself.
Our Outside Broadcast Programme was another recent launch. Many women had enrolled in the mentoring course, but they struggled to attend sessions due to being out on trucks for work. Finally, we are also doing a lot of work around menopause, running sessions which involve doctors and companies carrying out good practice with women dealing with menopause.
FROM SCREEN TO SCENE Rise Academy Summer Schools (above) give hands-on broadcast experience to burgeoning young professionals in media tech
A big issue when getting women onto panels is a lack of confidence
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