Women In Tech: Launching and Scaling a Global Initiative

Is Diversity Necessary for Business Success?

According to Forbes, high-gender-diversity companies generated more revenue, on average, than less diverse companies over the past five years.?

Diversity and inclusivity have been proven to widen the talent pool in an organisation, improve recruitment and staff retention, and enhance customer experience.?

In addition, having more women in the workplace increases a business’ profitability.?

So, it’s safe to say that gender diversity helps to make companies more successful in every aspect.?

More women in the workplace is proven to increase profitability.        

A Current Snapshot of Women In Tech

Globally, women make up only 10% of executive roles in the tech industry.?

Women hold only 28% of leadership roles in the top 10 global tech companies.?

And out of all of the CEOs on the Fortune 500 list, just 41 are women.?

Clearly, there is work to be done.?

The tech industry, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in general, is notorious for traditionally not being so welcoming to women.?

And it’s even worse for women of colour.?

With all the research proving that gender diversity is a company’s greatest asset, what gives? How is this still our reality?

Let’s Do Something About It?

In early 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic put us in a global lockdown, I joined forces with two colleagues who feel just as strongly about gender equality.?

Zubair Timol (Meltwater EMEA Vice President), Julia Nill (Meltwater EMEA Enterprise Director) and I, jumped on a Zoom call and discussed the importance of creating a digital community within the Meltwater organisation to share ideas, continue learning, and be inspired.?

The importance of creating a safe space for employees to talk about topics that genuinely matter.?

Via active participation and support, together we hope to build a mutual learning exchange, resulting in progressive leadership on a global basis.

And so; the Women In Tech initiative was launched.?

With my co-founders; Zubair Timol and Julia Nill        

From Idea to Action to Impact

Shortly after our initial meeting, my co-founders and I hosted the inaugural Women In Tech (WIT) virtual event.?

Being based in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) ourselves, the first event was for female Meltwater employees in the management layer within the EMEA region only. We featured three guest speakers, who spoke about different aspects of holistic leadership - in business, health, and life.?

We had over 150 female managers from across Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK, India, the Middle East, and Africa, join in.?

The response was overwhelming — and the vision and mission of WIT resonated deeply with everyone. For the following event, we opened it up to all seniority levels, departments and genders, across EMEA.?

Some of the guest speakers we featured included: entrepreneur Ayumi Moore Aoki, wellness and mindset expert Chantal Cohen, mountaineer and adventurer Lee Den Hond, comms professional Patricia Obozuwa, tech sustainability advisor Ann Rosenberg, entrepreneur and academic Farzana Baduel, and one of our very own incredible Meltwater leaders, Cécile Méguère.?

After the third event, we were receiving messages and calls from our colleagues in the Americas and APAC, asking us when they could attend one of our sessions.?

One of the first EMEA-wide virtual Women In Tech events        

Going Global?

By the start of 2021, we had gone global.?

Soon, we were hosting WIT events with over 1,000 live attendees from across the world. Meltwater employees from all regions and departments joined to create a digital community of learning, growth, and inspiration.?

The Meltwater Shanghai office tuning in to watch a virtual WIT event        

But we very quickly realised that expansion into different markets was going to be challenging, if we didn’t have enough help and expertise on the ground.?

And so we opened it up to the Meltwater community to join the WIT team as global ambassadors and we were thrilled to have applicants from all over the world. My co-founders and I selected a team of passionate, and determined ambassadors to represent the WIT movement in their respective cities or regions.?

I’d like to thank some of the members of our now global WIT event series: Emily Metz and Kelly McKenna from the USA, Lea Reutter from Berlin, Germany, Alice Hogg in Singapore, Lucy Lawton and Elliot Lawry from Australia, Jan Sutherland and Soha Emam from Dubai, Christina Yu from Shanghai, China, Christine Nielsen, Nicole Lively and Annika Olsen from Canada, and Machiko Fujiwara from Tokyo, Japan.?

The incredible WIT ambassadors from the IMA and APAC regions        

Some of our incredible guest speakers included Patricia Obozuwa, VP of Comms at The Coca-Cola Company, on how to recognise and change our unconscious bias, and Akin Akman, founder of AARMY, on how to grow and develop an online empire.?

We heard from Garance Wattez-Richard, CEO of Emerging Markets at AXA Group, and Zain Masri, Google’s Head of Brand.?

Amber Anderson, CEO at Tote + Pears, told us how leveraging vulnerability has become her biggest strength. Amy Kunrojpanya, VP at Netflix, spoke about how we can truly achieve diversity. We even had a former FBI Agent, Gina Osborn, on owning your authenticity to become the best leader in your industry.

Amy Kunrojpanya, VP of Comms at Netflix, on how to truly achieve D&I        

The rapid scale that we’ve seen, the quality of speakers, and the flawless execution of the events, would not have been possible without our team of dedicated and passionate ambassadors.?

A physical post-lockdown event: Women In Tech brunch in Dubai        

What’s Next?

Zubair, Julia, and I have been planning an even bigger and better 2022!

We want to make sure we have a positive impact on every Meltwater employee, give back to our ambassadors that are working hard to carry out these events, and keep developing and growing the WIT brand.?

We have a website page that is in the works, which will act as a portal to keep all the WIT speakers, partners, and insights in one place — so keep an eye out for the launch.?

With borders slowly opening up again, we are also planning a couple of co-founder and ambassador meet-ups around the world.?

As more and more Meltwater employees share their insights from the events on LinkedIn, we will soon be opening a LinkedIn page that people even outside of Meltwater, can follow and stay updated.?

And we have a number of other surprises up our sleeves.?

But first, we’re going to end off 2021 with a bang - and a very special Q4 event.?

We are thrilled to announce our three guest speakers for the global Women In Tech event that will be the 2021 finale, hosted in November.?

We have Nontokozo Madonsela, the Chief Marketing Officer at Momentum Metropolitan Holdings. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, and women empowerment, Nontokozo is a force to be reckoned with. She will be giving a presentation entitled, “Diversity can’t wait.” And, honestly, neither can we.?

We are especially excited to announce that the next two guest speakers that will speak at our global WIT finale are two of the newest additions to the Meltwater Executive Team.?

Alexandra Saab Bjertn?s, Chief Strategy Officer, and Elena Shishkina, Chief Financial Officer, will be speaking at Women In Tech, November 2021!?

Alexandra, Lena, Nontokozo; we can't wait to hear from you        

We are excited to give a warm welcome to both Alexandra and Elena, as well as learn more about their journeys and success.?

Meltwater, see you on 10 November!

For more information, contact us at [email protected].