With International Women’s day just around the corner, we here at JLA are always inundated with requests for inspirational women to speak about the subjects they’re passionate about, and 2022 is no different.
The theme of IWD 2022 is to “Break the Bias” – after the release of Caroline Criado-Perez’s game changing book Invisible Women, the spotlight is now rightfully focusing on the short shrift women have had in society for as long as records have existed, specifically in data which inherently should be unbiased, but is very much the opposite.
Alongside Caroline, there is fortunately a plethora of fantastic keynote speakers which every organisation would benefit from hearing from:
Louise Minchin
If you’ve been involved in the conference game for a while there’s a good chance you’ll have seen Louise hosting various events over the years, and she is certainly one of the best out there doing it.
But what you might not know is that Louise more recently has been a brilliant advocate for women’s physical and mental health in relation to exercise (her personal choice of athletics is the Triathlon, which still baffles me that anyone does that).
She is also one of the only speakers, certainly I have heard, talking about the Menopause and how it affects women of a certain age in the workplace, helping to raise awareness, lessen the stigma, and hopefully elicit a little more sympathy from male employers and colleagues.
Katrine Marcal
The world of economics (and STEM subjects in general) is often viewed as very much a man’s domain, which is why there is so much data bias in the world right now.
Katrine Marçal is a Swedish journalist and bestselling author on the intersection between economics, women and innovation. She highlights with hard data, how deep-seated gender inequality, particularly in Western countries which view themselves as more “equal”, is fiscally holding us all back and if there were more equity then we would all be better off for it – not just morally, but also financially as well.
Alongside the financial, she also explores how fantastic and innovative inventions are often overlooked by male investors due to their ingrained sense of what male and female roles are in society. One example of an invention which we now can’t live without, being the wheely suitcase, was ridiculed for years before finally getting the greenlight, and now are commonplace for all travellers. Can you imagine navigating Heathrow airport with a massive bag you have to carry with you bare hands – no thanks.
Dr Pragya Agarwal
Dr Pragya Agarwal is a writer, academic, behavioural and data scientist. Running with the theme of IWD this year being to “Break the Bias” there is no one better placed in my mind to speak about the way in which human beings are inherently biased in everything they do, and how we need to recognise it and change our behaviours.
In her fantastic book SWAY – Unravelling Unconscious Bias, Pragya explains that bias isn’t something that can be “trained away”, but as long as we are all aware that it is happening then we can take steps into improving everyday life for everyone that isn’t a middle aged white man (I’ve paraphrased that last bit).
Charlie Martin
Another profession that for as long as it’s existed has been dominated by men is motorsport. If you had to think of anyone that personifies the sport you think of playboys such as James Hunt, daredevils such as Valentino Rossi and a human moustache known as Nigel Mansell.
But no women.
Having had a lifelong love affair with motorsport, and having a pretty successful amateur career, when Charlie transitioned she was worried that she wouldn’t be embraced by her colleagues and friends in a sport often seen as hostile towards women.
But that wasn’t the case. In fact she had a huge amount of support which helped her not only be more happy as a person, but massively improved her performance on the track – proving that the pressure society places on those seen as “other” massively hinders how well they perform, which simply isn’t fair on them, their colleagues or for the industries they work in.
We recently ran a JLA Speakers Briefing, which both Louise and Katrine spoke at and I’d highly recommend checking the footage below.
But if you’d like to hear from any of these fantastic speakers, or indeed any other of the hundreds of brilliant women speakers we work with then do get in touch with your JLA Account Manager and we’d be happy to send options over for almost any budget.
Act fast as IWD is always an incredibly popular date to book talent!