Let's Make Hospitality Events More Representative - Rachel Humphrey

Josiah: As you look out over the industry, you've seen it from a lot of different perspectives. What is broken today as you look at hospitality industry events?

Rachel: I don't know if anything's broken so much as things are slower to progress than I think is necessary. You know, if you break conferences and other events into two categories, attendees and speakers, I think we're seeing different trends. We certainly see more women, more diversity among attendees at industry events, and that's great. It's certainly growing. I'm not certain, though, if, you know, and I certainly haven't looked into it, if you looked at what were the roles or titles of women attending, if you are necessarily finding investment, real estate, valuation, kind of the money side of things that a lot of the investment conferences really strive for in attendance. But we are continuing to see attendance numbers being a little bit more balanced. The area I think there's still a lot of room for growth, though, is on stage. And whether that's during the general session or during the breakouts, we've seen trends where there's a lot more women, a lot more diversity on those stages, but it is nowhere near, again, reflective of the numbers we were talking about earlier. And I think here's a great example. It's almost a catch-22. People say, well, it's harder to source women because there aren't as many women in leadership. But part of the way that women are afforded leadership opportunities is to be seen as subject matter experts, to have a personal brain where people know you through your network, through your relationships. A lot of that is done in person at these events. So if women aren't attending, they're not networking and building relationships in that way. They are in others. If they're not speaking, they're not being seen as subject matter experts in their fields and may not be considered for opportunities. So there's a lot of areas, I think, in the conference stages that there's a lot of great room for improvement. Some are probably easier fixes. Some are probably more systematic and are going to need some particular attention paid to it. The good news is, again, that those numbers are increasing, and the conference organizers are incredibly committed to achieving greater diversity across the stages. Again, when you talk about collaboration earlier, it needs to be a collaborative effort. We need companies, sponsors especially, to put women or a more diverse slate of speakers forward when they're suggesting speakers for conferences. We need conferences to expand their networks, and my kids laugh when I say Rolodex, but expand their Rolodex to be thinking of maybe non-traditional speakers. Sometimes, the fix can be as easy as changing something from a CEO panel to a leadership panel. There might not be a lot of female CEOs, unfortunately, still in the industry, but if you change it to leadership, managing directors, founders, principals, and other C-suite titles opens that up. There's tremendous female leadership in this industry right now. So when you're looking at what are all of the different contributing factors, a collaborative effort to really getting more women on stage, we also as women, you know, one of the things we hear on DEI Advisors a lot is the biggest hurdle that a lot of people think they need to overcome for leadership is public speaking. And so if you are either afraid of public speaking or not given the opportunity to develop that, that probably is going to be a hurdle. But public speaking isn't just on the general session stage in front of 5,000 people. It can be to your team, to your board, one-on-one in a meeting with someone on your team. It can be at a smaller conference. You know, there are a lot of local events. There's a lot of regional events. So how do we get more women and more diverse speakers really in that conversation? I think that Conference organizers need to be committed to it. Sponsors need to be committed to it. Companies need to be committed to it. I think women also need to be committed to saying yes. We hear anecdotally that more women say no than men say no when you ask for conference speakers. And there's probably a lot of reasons for that. Some probably societal as far as commitments at home, whether it's parenting or companies or travel time or other parents elder care. So trying to figure out what the obstacles are and then how we work together to overcome them.

Josiah: I like your call to action for individuals. It's good for your career. It's good for your leadership opportunities and some amazing conversations with female leaders you've had at DEI advisors and elsewhere showcases. I think both you and they have spoken to the opportunity that this represents. It's really powerful, but if you're wanting to reach increasingly senior levels of leadership, this is a very practical thing you can do. Just get started, right? Look for those opportunities. It's almost like comedians will practice at small clubs just to work on the material. It almost feels like a game of reps, right? Where you have to work on the material and the more reps, the better.

Rachel: Well, and podcasting is a perfect example, because, as I mentioned to you, you've got an incredibly diverse slate of guests, and I'm so happy to see what you're doing in the industry to promote leadership that all looks very different and has different roles within the industry. But there are a lot of opportunities for people to join podcasts, to join webinars and other things that maybe aren't the commitment of being out of the office or out of your house for three or four days, and also brands you as a subject matter expert in whatever you're talking about. The only thing I would add to that, I hear a lot of conversation now about women don't just want to be asked to be on panels talking about women in leadership or DEI. And I think that that's a critically important distinction of Women who have subject matter expertise absolutely should be on panels talking about their subject matter expertise. The flip side of that is that I think that panels and keynotes and other things about women in leadership are what has started and perpetuated a lot of the conversation. So I don't want to see an either or, I want to see both. And part of that is by having the discussion, by continuing to educate, to raise awareness, to hearing the obstacles for women in the industry. That is how we as an industry collectively collaborate to overcome those challenges and to change the path of a lot. The other thing is you can have incredibly great female leaders, VPs, SVPs, who might not be being asked to speak on a CDO panel or a CEO panel or something like that. But again, here's an opportunity to have a conference speaker who maybe is not the usual speaker that you have. It allows them to continue to master the craft of public speaking. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of resources out there, too. There's a lot of public speaker trainings. There's a lot of ways. I love hearing how people have developed it on their own. I've heard some incredibly funny stories about how people do it. I've heard some very intentional coursework and other types of things. But I think that both of those opportunities coexisting. It's also a win for the conferences. I think that a lot of women go to see other women speak. So you're bringing in followership, a new audience there. I think that while you and I have both been to a lot of conferences, you do tend to hear the same people year after year at a lot of them. You also hear the same people from one to the next. So I'm always interested in hearing differing viewpoints or maybe something that I didn't hear at the last conference, so I think it also benefits attendance and the attendee value by showing such a different perspective or somebody else's voice on something.

Josiah: There's so many practical takeaways that you've shared that I'm really excited for our audience to hear. Maybe to close, I'd love to kind of ask you if you're running the Rachel Humphrey conference, you know, if there's anything else you do differently. I just want to follow up, though, on a couple of things that you said to underscore them, because I think I really want our listeners to kind of leave with understanding the opportunity here. Even in the world of podcasting, you see some of the curation decisions that I think event organizers need to make. It's, I think, even more compelling to think about showcasing somebody who has done something that others then can learn from than just the title in an organization, right? And so to your point of making more diverse, interesting events, this is really powerful because there are women across the industry around the world doing incredible things. And I think looking for those stories and showcasing them makes a really interesting listening-learning experience. So I feel like there's a lot to dive into there. But if you're running the hypothetical Rachel Humphrey conference, is there anything else that comes to mind that you'd be doing differently as an event organizer to kind of change the dynamic here a little bit?

Rachel: Well, let me be very clear that in retirement, I don't want to take on the Rachel Humphrey Hospitality Industry Conference. There's really two things. First of all, I will focus more on the individual than on the conference. First, I will say, raise your hand, reach out to conferences. There is a speaker bio that might be different from your bio. Let them know what subject matter you can cover. what experience, if any, you have speaking and let them know you're interested. Let your company know you're interested. Hey, I'd like to do more public speaking. Are there opportunities for me to do that again? Reaching out to podcasts, hosts, others, not just conference organizers, but make yourself available and commit to yourself to say, I'm going to work on this skill. If you think you need to, there's a lot of people who are great public speakers who probably don't need to continue to hone the skill. But if you have fears about it, or if you don't know that you are as seasoned in it, commit some time to getting better at it and to having experience, but to let people know that you're interested in doing it. From the conference organizer standpoint, I think intentionality matters. I think when we're looking at sourcing panels, when we're looking at sourcing general session speakers, look at the composition of panels, look at who is year over year, ask your sponsoring companies, do you have anybody new this year that might be great for this particular session? Or, Rachel, I understand you can't make it this year and we're terribly sorry to hear that, but can you recommend some other women who might be great to fill that role that you can't? And you always want your best speakers, your best subject matter experts, and there's no dilution of value or anything like that by having the intentionality in that sourcing of speakers and opportunities. I think that part of expanding your network and your Rolodex is that a lot of us, and I do it as well. I mean, you probably do it when you're sourcing the podcast. I do it when I'm sourcing the podcast. I go to my network and I say, hey, so-and-so, you've had a huge impact on me and I'd love to share your story. But now I love that other people are reaching out to me saying, hey, have you ever heard of so-and-so? They'd be a great guest on the DEI Advisors podcast. So, really be open to expanding those networks and those relationships. seeing if there are others. You mentioned earlier that somebody with actual stories and takeaways how much value that provides to attendees. I'll never forget trying to source a CEO, not of a brand or management company, for a panel that was on F&B. And he, to his credit, said, hey, I would be happy to. but I don't touch the F&B at our company. We have this incredible head of F&B who happens to be a female with a VP title, but she's the one who's killing it day in and day out. We sourced her, and she was incredible. And the attendees were really taken away by the actionable things that she had implemented that brought about great profit and great change for her business. And so reminding ourselves, like you said, It's not just about title. Who are some of the people doing the work? Yes, you pay a lot of money to go to a conference. I understand you want to hear certain CEOs or certain content, but there's a lot of incredible leaders out there that are doing great work. So I guess I'd say to organizers, be intentional. Reach out to me, reach out to others, seek recommendations from great speakers that you've had in the past to companies that have to play a part in it as well. Be submitting a slate of names that may be a little bit different than the slate you submitted last year. And hopefully, obviously, as we see succession planning and promotions and other things being announced in the industry, The industry itself will also follow. It's hard to look to organizers to do something that the industry itself isn't necessarily doing as far as leadership goes. So hopefully, as we see more women and other underrepresented individuals filling leadership seats, some of that will happen naturally. And then women just say, yes, raise your hand and say yes. And keep saying yes until someone affords you that opportunity and then crush it. And you'll be on that path forever.