We can help influence and drive change by encouraging more women to speak at our conferences and participate in our activities. We would like to invite you to contribute to this effort to bring more gender balance and diversity in the composition of our panels.

Please use this web form to inform us about experts who can make valuable contributions to trade conferences.

The deadline for submission is September 1, 2018. After this cut of date, this form will still be live and the submissions received will be considered for other relevant events, so please feel free to submit anyway.

If you have any question, please email us at manfred.werfel@wan-ifra.org

We thank you in advance for taking the time to read the below statements on gender balance and sexual harassment, and value a continued discussion on how we as an industry can better work together to promote gender equality and create environments that are free of sexual harassment and sexism in all forms.

Vincent Peyrègne, CEO

WAN-IFRA recently introduced a gender strategy, which includes internal targets to achieve greater gender balance throughout the organisation and within our governance structures by 2021. These targets aim to achieve gender balance in all WAN-IFRA activities. We are appealing to our valued partners to work with us to achieve these goals.

The media industry has a long way to go to achieve gender balance. As few as 17% of CEO roles in the top 100 media companies globally are filled by women. Women are also seen and heard far less than their male counterparts, featured as experts in the media on average only 25% of the time.

We can help influence and drive change by encouraging more women to speak at our conferences and participate in our activities. We ask that you to consider the composition of your panels and/or speakers to ensure that they are both, gender balanced and diverse. We ask that you consider the same when identifying individuals from your companies to represent you at WAN-IFRA and affiliated events.

If you would like to learn more about how we are working toward ensuring an equal gender balance across WAN-IFRA, we would be happy to share.

We want to convey a clear message that all forms of sexual harassment are unacceptable. We request all our partners to endorse this message and uphold these standards and implement measures to combat sexual harassment where necessary.

Change begins with increased awareness, dialogue and, crucially, the creation of policies and procedures that help establish working environments that are free from sexual harassment.

We would urge all our members and partners to have ethical guidelines and good systems in place for preventing, reporting, and dealing with matters such as sexual harassment, sexual assaults, and sexist behaviour.

If your organisation does not have these guidelines and systems in place yet, we encourage you to review our toolkit for managing sexual harassment, which includes comprehensive definitions, a sample sexual harassment policy, as well as a communications procedures guide.