Highlights from MadFest 2023 Part 1

We recently had the privilege of attending MadFest, the UK’s biggest destination marketing festival, where we heard from some incredibly inspiring voices. Here are the first of our key takeaways from a packed 3-day event.

An emphasis on female representation in leadership roles?

Did you know only 5% of tech founders are female, and only 6% of sports coverage features female sport?

This year, MadFest had a dedicated area called the Female Leaders’ Bar - a safe space for talks hosted by female CEOs, business owners and leaders for women in our industry, and those considering starting their own business. Female-led talks were featured across the venue as well, like the one shown below:

“A Blueprint to Becoming a Female Founder” was hosted by Julia Linehan , CEO & Founder, The Digital Voice, Katie Street , MD & Founder, The Street Agency, Laura Cioffi , Co-Founder, Vertis Media, Piper Heitzler , Founder, Cheltenham Partners + Chief of Staff, Samina Courtin , Founder + Director, Mon Dessert, Ellie Edwards-Scott , Co-Founder, the Advisory Collective, discussing their own journey setting up their businesses and encouraging? other women to take the leap.

In another talk, Isabel Massey , VP, Global Media and Marketing, Diageo shared how at Diageo, they ensure sportswomen’s profiles are up to date on Wikipedia to spotlight their careers, taking a small step to tackle the disparity between men’s and women's sports coverage.?

As a brand Diageo committed to champion diversity and inclusion as part of their Society 2030: Spirit of Progress’ action plan. Diageo owned brands have been known to release campaigns championing women’s’ sports. The most recent example is Johnnie Walker’s partnership with Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham, encouraging everyone to watch women’s’ sport:

How we spotlight female entrepreneurs

At distillery, we recently spotlighted women in tech in our mini series on web 3 of our podcast, distillery sessions. In our latest episode, we spoke to Jessica Thomas , founder and strategy lead of Merse Advisory on future-proofing with blockchain.

Listen on Apple podcasts here.

Listen on Spotify here.

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