Action Alert | WWD Beauty CEO Summit: Gender Imbalance or Just Bad Marketing?

The WWD Beauty CEO Summit scheduled for May is getting a lot of attention — Caroline Hirons Instagram post, for example — because of the lack of women speaking at the event.

But if you really dig in, the speaker page indicates that 13 women and 11 men are speaking.

The lesson here for WWD is to pay more attention to the promotional materials for the event. Three white men, two of who are from the same company, are featured as the faces of the conference. This is clearly giving the wrong message. A conference that features a nearly 50/50 speaker lineup should be celebrated, but first impressions count, and WWD is finding that out the hard way.

The @WWD Beauty CEO Summit is being criticized for having too many men as speakers, but is that accurate or just bad marketing judgement? #genderavenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/action-alert-wwd-beauty-ceo-summit