Women in Work x NBCUniversal: Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity

We, at Women in Work, are delighted to have co-hosted a breakfast at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity last Thursday. The correspondent, author and reporter Julia Boorstin chaired a breakfast of female change-makers at NBCUniversal’s beautiful studio space in the heart of Cannes. Representing were Cindy Gallop, Madeline di Nonno Madeline Di Nonno, Grainne Wafer and Nishma Patel Robb ???? - all powerhouse leaders who have lifted other women as they’ve risen through the ranks.

Julia opened by delivering a firm message that convening women is still as important as it’s always been. For still, we are a minority in power positions (only 8% of the world’s CEOs are women) and by bringing us together, we continue to overcome the negative impact of false stereotypes.? As she reminded us, representation has a measurable benefit: together we are force multipliers.

Cindy Gallop, marking the tenth anniversary of the Glass Lion as jury president, talked about how building solutions to power female economic success (citing UN Women NL and DEGIRO’s Pink Chip) is slowly but surely setting a positive path forward for women-led business.? But the real mic drop? Cindy thinks the acronym DE&I should receive a positive reframe to represent what it really means:? “Driving Excessive Income”.? This was demonstrated in the award-winners that she had judged over the last few days at Cannes Lions.? The correlation between DE&I and economic benefits can no longer be ignored.

Nishma Patel Robb, current president of WACL and Founder & CEO of Glittersphere vehemently agreed, citing the compelling stats around growth: where good DE&I leads to a 30% uplift and sales and a 50% uplift in brand love. As she said, despite all the advanced tech tools at our disposal, no other tool is as successful as DE&I. It leads to sustained financial advantage. We need to ask for, and demand more from ourselves and from businesses we work for, she said.

As the first woman to lead the Guinness brand at Diageo, Grainne Wafer is no stranger to brand growth and backed up the other panellists’ economic arguments.? Diageo tracks as one of the world’s best employers for women:? with 75% women on the board? and six months parental leave (for dads too). She talked about how this has created a broader culture of empathy at the business, with fathers now understanding the impact and importance of taking time off.? Diageo, she says, brings men to all diversity conversations, reminding us that “DE&I is everyone’s opportunity”.

Representation perpetuates beliefs and stereotypes, Madeline Di Nonno told the audience, and advertisers and businesses must do better to represent the world at large accurately, without bias. Every year, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media produces an annual report on representation in media with enlightening (and worrying) findings. For example, despite LGBTQAI identifying as up to 10% of the population, we only see this play out as 1% of characters in advertising. And moms? In research they co-produced with Archewell Group and Moms First, women are all white, skinny and perfect. “Who is looking after their kids?!” she rhetorically asked the audience, to ripples of laughter.

As the world continues on its fast AI trajectory,? Cindy gave us a sobering reminder that it’s even more important that women are key players in the conversation. With women as main protagonists, AI will be safer and we will come up with use-cases that are highly compelling, compassionate and good for society.

Summing up, Julia left the Cannes Lions cohort with some key takeaways. For women to continue to make progress, we need to understand the importance of measuring progress and to do this, of course, we need to know what we're measuring in the first place (financial growth, employee sentiment, brand awareness, gross domestic happiness are just some examples). We need better allyship and we need men to take up parental leave, rather than just offer it. Finally, we need better representation in front of, and behind, the camera; so that women feel like they have agency and are better “seen” in the world.

Thank you NBCUniversal for the opportunity to bring Women in Work to a receptive and enthusiastic audience.