The International Exhibition Logistics Association (IELA) launched its Power Up campaign on International Women’s Day, 8 March, designed to celebrate and support Women's Leadership in the Exhibition and Event Logistics Industry.
The programme is based on three pillars for action: Inspire, Ignite and Mentor, and the IELA Mentorship Programme will be a key element.
IELA Chairman Vicki Bedi has noted that a major constituent of the 2019 IELA Sustainability programme is the increased involvement of women in leadership and explains IELA’s strong convictions on the matter: “An increase in visibility of successful women leaders as role models and the promotion of talent amongst fellow female colleagues can profoundly strengthen and also stabilise our industry. Current challenges in personnel recruitment and retention could become a thing of the past. It is with this in mind that IELA has launched its Mentoring Programme.”
The 85th UFI Global Congress in St Petersburg, Russia last November, presented the research findings, ‘Women in the exhibitions industry’ and IELA’s Elizabeth Niehous, who was present, says: “We need to take this subject seriously and want to play a key role in supporting young women to develop their power to succeed in our industry.
"There is, indeed, a need for an intergenerational exchange of experience and know-how, in personal coaching for a planned career development. We want to enable all efforts into creating positive energy and boost ambition. Our Power Up initiative will do just this!”
The Power Up programme has three pillars for action: Inspire, Ignite and Mentor.
The Inspire pillar will consist of interviews and videos with key women in the industry and social media actions to acknowledge strong and leading women.
The Ignite pillar will focus on workshops and on-site activities to ignite hidden potential and develop skills with specialised training during IELA Live events, leadership development programmes at IELA Academy and organised exchange programmes.
The third pillar, Mentor, is the IELA Mentoring Programme, launched on 8 March and a call for participation has been sent to women who might be interested in mentoring or being mentored.
For more detail and to apply, contact: elizabeth@iela.org. The deadline for submission of applications is 31 May 2019.
Mentors and mentees will have a first chance to connect at the IELA Congress which runs 23–26 June 2019 in Venice.
IELA has also broadened its international commitment by joining the Event Industry Council.
