FEATURING MARY PORTAS...!
Mary Portas, author of Work Like a Woman and founder of the Portas Agency, is the key note at this year's International Men's Day event. We've partnered with Token Man again (founded by Daniele Fiandaca of Utopia) and created a longer event exploring masculinity in the workplace. We're super excited and would love to see some of you there!
This year's theme is "The hero's journey". The vision for the event is to re-examine the idea of the hero. We found that many leaders who had really questioned their bias, impact and stereotypes were those for whom something hard had happened. An inciting incident had led to a paradigm shift and a subsequent behavioural change. What can we learn from these people? As Daniele once said to me, 'It really shouldn't have had to take my brother dying to have this realisation...'.
We want to create a culture in which being a male leader is synonymous with courageous vulnerability, caregiving, empathy and balanced mental health. We simply cannot talk about creating a difference with gender in the workplace without including men in the conversation and without making masculinity part of that discussion.
The event also features Will Pike (Mumbai bombings survivor and disability advocate), Han-Son Lee (founder of Daddilife), Marvyn Harrison (founder of Dope Black Dads) and Coca-Cola European Partners’ Richard Schmidt.
The afternoon will offer attendees the opportunity to debate and discuss new, modern constructs around masculinity. By challenging the limiting and narrow constructs of masculinity that currently exist in the workplace, the event will open up fresh conversation to provide inspiration for change.
Attendees will learn more about the opportunities for male (and female) leaders to embrace change. Indeed Mary's topic is about how she learnt to take the alpha out of her leadership style.
I'll hand over to Daniele to close; “Recent focus has been on the changes that women need to make to fit into a masculine workplace, when we should be focusing on creating more inclusive workplaces which work for all genders. This event will re-examine the damaging traditional masculine traits that are hindering modern businesses, and explore ways we can build workplace cultures that are more effective and more inclusive for everyone.
“This event is for anyone who is passionate about driving gender equality in the workplace and we welcome everyone however they identify or express themselves. In particular we would love to see a broad representation of CEOs, CMOs, HR Directors and inclusion & diversity practitioners.”
Event partners include AudioNetwork, Coca-Cola European Partners, EQT Ventures, Havas, M&C Saatchi, Omnicom media Group UK, Verizon Media and WPP, and we have received generous support from IAB UK, the IPA, Management Today, NABS, The Book of Man, WACL, We are The City, and the Women’s Equality Party. Tickets for the event can be purchased
here.
Roxanne and Daniele at last years Masculinity in the Workplace event
