CEO Marie-Claire Isaaman looks back on Women in Games in 2021
I’m delighted to be launching our first Women in Games newsletter today. It has long been our ambition to further engage with our community in a meaningful way, so it’s fantastic to finally be able to press the button on this new initiative.
Our newsletter will initially be published monthly, so that we regularly keep everyone up to date on all our activities and initiatives, as well as those of our Ambassadors, Education Ambassadors and Corporate Ambassadors. The newsletter will provide a mix of opinion pieces, news from Women in Games, updates on events and initiatives, job opportunities and more. It is our intention to shine the spotlight on all our Ambassadors & Corporate Partners. This is your newsletter, your community – and we encourage you to get involved.
The launch of the newsletter rounds off what has been a pivotal year for Women in Games, and I would love to remind you of what we’ve achieved since the turn of 2021.
Events
The world, of course, went digital this year – this gave Women in Games a great opportunity to extend the reach of our events globally.
We have hosted two Careers & Networking Expos, one in March and one in November, each seeing registrations of 1,000+ individuals looking to further their careers, to network and talk to studios in our Expo area about opportunities, and to learn from inspiring speakers from across the globe.
In late summer we built on the success of our established events by launching the Women in Games Festival, a fortnight of focussed activity highlighting the work of women in games and esports from around the world.
The Festival included an IRL London Launch Event to kickstart the two weeks of activities – our two-day annual Conference, Esports Tournament, a Games Jam and a series of community-based Satellite Events, with our Global Awards as the finale.
The fantastic success of all these events has made Women in Games truly global. Hosting the events virtually via the brilliant Hopin platform, whilst also scheduling events to cover all time zones, has meant that we are now attracting more international delegates and businesses than ever before. We have some very interesting statistics on who has been involved, tuning in and from where, so please let us know if you’d like to find out more.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the fabulous Women in Games events team for their incredibly hard work. These superstars include Sharon Tolaini-Sage, Lauren Payne, Robin Milton, Gemma Elnaugh, Lucy Rissik and the wider Women in Games team.
The Team
As a not-for-profit, Women in Games operates with a very small, agile team of individuals who have the collective ambition of making the worlds of games and esports better, more genuinely diverse and more attractive places for women.
We are pleased to have been able to expand that team over the past few months, with the following joining us:-
Jenny Ching-Wei Lee – Marketing Manager
Lisa Carter – Director of PR & Communications
Robin Milton – 2022 Awards Executive Producer
I’m honoured to have such a dedicated team, and would like to ensure that everyone is namechecked here. So please indulge me while I also thank David Smith (COO), Gemma Johnson-Brown (Ambassador Director), Ruth Falconer (Education Director), Rachel Moss (Projects Director), Roxy Francis (Onboard & Events Ambassador Coordinator), Natalie Dodd (Discord Community Manager), Paula Palmer (Event & Admin Support) and Charly Harbord (Co-Ordinator & Collaborator).
In addition, I’d like to thank our Advisory Board for the time, consideration and effort that they put into supporting and guiding our work. Those individuals include Angela Natividad, Hurrah; Antonia Gold, Sheridans; Dan Wood, Creative England & Ukie; Dr Siobhan Thomas, Kickstand Games; Elizabeth Sampat; Emma Smith, Creative Assembly; Harinder Sangha, Sumo Digital; Michelle Tilley, Sony PlayStation; Rebecca Sampson, Hangar 13; Sarah Calvely, Amazon Web Services; Sharon Tolaini-Sage, Conference Curator; Vanessa Joyce, Strategic Partnerships Leader
What’s Next?
If the shocking reports of toxicity and harassment in the games industry over the past few months have shown anything, it’s that the work of Women in Games is more important than ever.
And we are stepping up our activism, with your support.
As well as our calendar of events for 2022 (put a date in your diary now for our first event, the Careers & Networking Expo on March 10th), we are publishing the Second Edition of our Women in Games Guide: Building a Fair Playing Field in Q1 2022. At the same time, we will publish a report on the results of our two recent surveys into the attitudes and experiences of women in games and esports. And I will be presenting on the continuing challenges faced by women in the workplace and female players online within our sector, as well as potential opportunities to develop collaborative solutions, at the Westminster Policy Forum in February 2022
There is much work to be done.
Thank you all for your support of Women in Games. We’re looking forward to further collaboration in 2022.
Marie-Claire Isaaman, CEO, Women in Games
Newsletter lead pic credit: Photo by Pablo Gentile on Unsplash