You have had a unique set of experiences. You have been a professional emcee for many years and now run conferencemcees.com where you connect event organisers with professional emcees around the world. What has been your own experience as an emcee? Have you ever felt limited or dismissed due to gender?
Organising events is complex. Considering that events have such a huge impact on people, the planet and profit, there’s a wide range of possibilities on how to diversify an event. I think diversity is a critical consideration for all meeting and event organisers. We have a growing number of enquiries from clients asking for female emcees, as they are beginning to recognise the importance of the optics of gender parity.
To answer your question, within my career in the meetings and events sector, I have felt both limited and dismissed, especially when I reached senior leadership roles within heavily male dominated organisations. This led me to moving out of that world and becoming an entrepreneur, and indeed led me to launching this business that has been built on the pillars of diversity and sustainability.
I have the freedom to build the right type of organisation and now that I’m a little older, I believe that my experience, my strength and belief in the values and SDGs we have as our roadmap mean that I don’t allow myself to be limited or dismissed due to gender.
I see. I remember reading your blog post on hosting a large conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Could you also share what that experience was like?
Riyadh was interesting as well as being the penultimate event I hosted before lockdown. The event company contacted me with this enquiry and immediately, I had to double check that they had seen my website and knew that I was a white, western woman. As we know, a man would not have had to start the relationship in this way. But it opened up a great dialogue around the objectives of the organisers, which was to demonstrate greater openness and gender parity at this time alongside recognition that the experience I had accrued would lend itself to their conference.
The organisers had invited Saudi and European business leaders but there were limited female speakers, partially due to the subject (this was in the rail/engineering sector in Saudi Arabia) as well as the situation. As a female, I was hugely challenged about accepting a role in a country with a difficult history when it comes to human rights but my philosophy is be the change you want to see, and in accepting the opportunity we had a real chance to support the client in developing and elevating their event experience for participants and speakers. My experience in Riyadh was exceptional, especially after my concerns about my gender. In this hugely male dominated environment, my voice was heard, my advice acted upon and the respect I felt during my trip was second to none.
So, is an attempt to balance events a reason why conferenceemcees.com gets enquiries for female hosts?
Our first question when we receive an enquiry, regardless of the request for a female emcee, is around the objectives and behaviour changes a client expects from this meeting or event. We work with our clients to really interrogate the brief, review the agenda and our job is to be that voice of their participant before we even get to show day. With certain industries, there remain challenges to recruit female speakers, or speakers of diverse ethnicities but with our partners and associates, we can help change the status quo. We worked with a client for many years, who has been openly talking about driving greater gender parity and diversity within their organisation but then had only white middle-aged speakers for their opening session. Their keynote speaker was the right call as he was an expert on the theme that they wanted to launch. We raised the questions around the audience (predominantly female) and the themes running through their agenda (DEI) It is often very easy to now ask these questions, or to even think about these and that is where our experiences with working with diverse audiences year round helps.
I absolutely believe that you need to source the right people, to provide the right content to create the behaviour change you want for your participants but this must go alongside that question of what do your audience see, say and feel when they look at your stage.
Inclusion is key when it comes to meetings and events, whether they be in-person, virtual or hybrid and this should be a high priority when it comes to making decisions on the meeting design. Our team is hugely experienced in this and this is why our clients keep returning and working with us year on year. We support the changes, we understand the challenges but we also ensure that there is accountability to inclusivity, gender parity and diversity. And this is why I do what I do for a living!
That’s true. Representation would open up the event to more people. Because you come in contact with so many different emcees via your community at conferencemcees.com, would you say that you have seen a difference in how male emcees and women emcees portray themselves?
All our emcees are rockstars, and we encourage our clients to consider them all based on the expertise and personas. However, at a recent community meeting there was a real sense that our female emcees in the majority do this job as they are naturally wired to support, are empathetic, incredible multi-taskers and good listeners. But whilst all our professionals in the community command those skills, the first one is definitely something that is more highly featured from our female associates as a top reason for doing what we do. But to go back to the topic of diversity, I would say that we should look at meeting design firstly and holistically, before we make any major changes due to perception or optics. Change can be incremental and as long as it is with integrity and communicated openly, this works for many organisations.
Inclusion is key when it comes to meetings and events, whether they be in-person, virtual or hybrid and this should be a high priority when it comes to making decisions on the meeting design. Our team is hugely experienced in this and this is why our clients keep returning and working with us year on year. We support the changes, we understand the challenges but we also ensure that there is accountability to inclusivity, gender parity and diversity. And this is why I do what I do for a living!
[This interview was conducted and edited by Aayati Sengupta.]
