Why are we closing this International Women’s Day? To reclaim the role of women in communication and society
The world of communication is largely made up of women. However, this reality changes when it comes to leadership positions. According to data from Top Comunicación, only 18.1% of national media directors are women. With regard to PR agencies in Spain, as reflected in data from ADC, the average number of women is 72.8%, but only 57% are on management committees of PR agencies. In Portugal, the figures are even more alarming, as 74.1% of communication departments and agencies are mostly composed of women, but only 37.5% of them hold leadership positions.
We believe that the industry should better reflect the demographic reality of the employees in its management. That’s why at Canela, an agency with 84% women on staff and 100% women in executive management, we have decided to go one step further to highlight the role of women in communication: the entire agency will be out of the office (OOO) on International Women’s Day. This initiative is also supported by the About PR agency, founded and led by two women, and inspired by an Appletree initiative held a few years ago.
To express our commitment to the cause of women’s empowerment, we have automated an “Out of Office” email explaining the reasons why we will not be working on International Women’s Day.
International Women’s Day - 8 Hours: At Canela we will donate 320 hours to initiatives that empower women
In addition, to turn this commitment into an initiative with a real positive impact, throughout the year Canela Spain will donate 8 hours per agency employee to initiatives that empower women, in collaboration with Coachability, a non-profit organisation whose aim is to support women entrepreneurs in countries with fragile economies and which focuses on collaborating, empowering and facilitating the creation of professional projects through creativity. In Canela Portugal we have chosen to offer our hours to Inspiring Girls, a non-governmental organisation that aims to show the future generation of women that they can do anything! For this to be possible, the organisation connects girls with professional women who are leaders in their fields.
In total, we will provide 320 hours in order to promote the five development cooperation projects in Africa that Coachability has underway, and to provide training and our experience in the public relations sector to Inspiring Girls.
A long-term commitment
Last year we also wanted to highlight the wide variety of work that women do in the communication sector and to inspire other women who are starting out in the sector or who have been working in it for years, but need the strength to keep on growing and overcome challenges. To this effect, we coordinated a book, Communicating Together, in which 36 women in the world of communication were given a voice. You can read more about this initiative and download the book in digital version here [link].
Shall we work together?
#8M #WorkingTogether #CanelaIberia
Deborah Gray is Founder and Managing Director