Pitch were honored to host the very first Bloom network event in Birmingham at our offices, on Wednesday 9th November. With almost 30 in attendance, we enjoyed a brilliant evening of thought-provoking discussion and exploration of topics close to our heart.
If you’ve not yet heard of Bloom, it’s a network that exists to help women in marketing and communications to fulfil their potential through networking, mentoring and fundraising. This particular event marks the opening of their Birmingham chapter – and what a fantastic note to begin on.
The event entitled ‘Achieving Your Potential’, welcomed a panel of speakers that included Bloom’s own Emily Philip and Abhi Punj of 3Twenty, Matt Andrews from BBC Digital Guerrillas, Tricia Owen-Williams from N-Power and Kat Ellis from ?What If! agency. The discussion focused upon the theme of diversity in the creative industries, exploring the idea that diversity is not simply gender based but extends across all boundaries, from gender, to ethnicity, education, socio-economic and beyond.
Abhi introduced Bloom to the audience and their ambitions for the Birmingham chapter, before handing over to Matt Andrews who stressed the importance of diversity in different forms, stating that a gender and ethnically diverse company will perform financially better by 15% and 35% respectively, than their competitors. Tricia Owen-Williams then offered us serious career motivation thanks to her professional motto of “nothing is impossible”; this sentiment was reiterated by Kat Ellis who gave the example that as a German national she had found it difficult to prove herself due to English being her second language, working exceptionally hard to achieve career success here in the UK.
The discussion was laid open to the floor and we explored ideas around bringing diversity to the workplace, including how to balance it alongside cultural fit and the perceived difficulty of marrying the two.
Diversity and equality in the workplace is rightly high on news agendas and we’re extremely proud to host the Bloom network for their Birmingham launch – we’ll be welcoming them back very soon so watch this space!
If you missed the event and would like to experience the discussion first hand, head over to our Facebook where we broadcast it live and will now be available to view online.
