Supporting Women in Exhibitions - An Opportunity for Network Growth

Oana Cipca [00:00:00]:

I literally went back home and said, "Okay, I'm going to register this Women in Exhibitions." I launched the news and everybody embraced it like it was something really refreshing and really new. And I also got some complaints and some associations who didn't want us to do such thing and thought they would do it much better. But I pursued. I kept going. And then women like Martha Donato, Tonya Thomas, Sylvia Foures, all very well-known names in our industry, embraced it as if it was something that should come and stay and build and grow.

Alyssa Peltier:

Great events create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences, well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews:

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu:

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier:

And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Rachel Andrews:

Hello, everyone. What is going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Rachel and I am one of your hosts here at Great Events. We have a fabulous podcast for you today in celebration of the International Women's Day. We have two fabulous ladies on our podcast, Danica and Oana. Welcome ladies. So happy for you all to be here.

These two fabulous ladies are part of the organization called Women in Exhibitions. I'm going to give a little bit more of a introduction of our guests on the podcast. Danica Tomohlen, VP of group content, Informa Connect, and she is the president of the North America chapter of Women in Exhibition. And then Oana Cipca, the founder of Women in Exhibition Network and senior manager at MECC in the Netherlands, which is an awesome venue. Welcome ladies.

I'd love to start with Oana since you're one of the founders of Women in Exhibitions. I know that there's many great people behind founding this organization, but I would love to start with you and then I'll go into Danica. But tell me a little bit about you and your role within the organization, but also you as a person outside of that because I know that this is not just your only role.

Oana Cipca:

No, let me start with my most important role. I'm a mother of a 15-years-old girl. I set up this Women in Exhibitions Network as a newcomer to the industry in 2018 when I realized that 80% of our industry is represented by women, yet on the higher positions in our industry, most of them are men. This is token of appreciation to the industry to set up this community of powerful women and lobby for them and make sure they are being seen by the industry. This has been organized with a lot of strong women within our industry. Danica is one of them helping us in North America. And yeah, I'm super proud about the fact that we grew and we are where we are today with worldwide representation.

Rachel Andrews:

Welcome. Thanks for being here. And then Danica, I know you've had quite the career journey, which we can definitely touch on, but talk to me about your role and your day job and then your role as the president of the North America chapter.

Danica Tormohlen:

Sure. Thank you so much for having me, Rachel. It's so great to be here. I am a regular podcast listener to Great Events, so you put out some really interesting content and have some great guests. So I'm honored to be here today.

I have been in the industry for about 30 years, so a long time, reporting all about events over the course of my career. I'm also a mom of two, one daughter and one son. And I am one of the founding members of the Women in Exhibition Network North America chapter and I became president last year. I want to give a shout out to our original executive committee, which included Martha Donato, Stephanie Selesnick, and Laura Purdy, all North American founding chapter members and I was also one of those.

We started here in 2020 during the pandemic when nobody was meeting and it really was a life line for the women that were in the group early on. And so we have just grown from there. First we started with online meetings and now we've grown with in-person meetups and online events regularly. So it's just a great networking opportunity for women in exhibitions, whether you're a supplier or a event planner or a trade show organizer. We're very inclusive is how I like to think of us.

Rachel Andrews:

Let's dive right in because we've started to touch on the origin story of Women in Exhibitions and I'll just open it up to the group. Either of you can take this. But I know you said 2020, which was a very interesting time. Just I feel like a lot of organizations started or changed or morphed or pivoted during that time. Tell me about the origin story. Why was it founded? How does it work? Tell me everything.

Because I only personally discovered Women in Exhibitions two years ago at PCMA when Danica posted on social media just, "Hey, we're all meeting up and come meet at this meetup location." And it was a great event. I met a lot of really unique, awesome women and some advocates. There was some men there as well. But it was a great meetup where you could just network with some other women leaders and just talk about all the topics that women talk about in our industry I think, which was really cool. But then I feel like since then I've seen more and more content from you all posted on LinkedIn and I thought it would be interesting for International Women's Day to highlight this organization because there are a lot of women's groups in the space, but I feel like sometimes it gets harder and harder to meet up.

Let's talk about why you started it, why people should join, all the things. Let's just dive right in.

Oana Cipca:

So back in 2016 when I came to the industry, I went to a conference of UFI in Johannesburg and I was like, you are the newcomer, so you're sitting in the room and you're like, "Okay, how is this industry going?" You don't know anyone. You try to find people to speak to and try to network and you do your best. Everybody seems to know each other because it's a very close community then, the UFI community. And we were listening to a panel discussion and it was also I believe in the period of the hashtag #MeToo in America. So there was a lot of things happening around the topic of the woman and diversity in general.

I was chit chatting with some of the women at the same conference from Germany and I was like, "Do we have at least a group of women so we can meet and see what we can do for the industry from a woman perspective as we have so many men on stage?" It was a different time compared with the times we are today. It was a time when we women weren't on stage at all in our industry. And then everybody said, "Yeah, we should do this, we should do this."

And I'm not so much of a thinker, I'm more of a doer in that respect. So I literally went back home and said, "Okay, I'm going to register this Women in Exhibitions." I went and built my own website and I launched the news and everybody embraced it like it was something really refreshing and really new. And I also got some complaints and some associations who didn't want us to do such thing and thought they would do it much better. But I pursued. I kept going.

And then women like indeed Martha Donato and Tonya Thomas and Sylvia Foures, who were just joining in and coming and helping helped us, like Lori Hoinkes, all very well-known names in our industry, embraced it as if it was something that it should come and stay and build and grow. And so this is I think also the power of our industry. We actually are open to help each other. We actually are helping each other. And yeah, that's how it started and why we did it is because we felt we didn't have a voice as a woman in the industry at that point and had to work on it.

Rachel Andrews:

One question I had was, so the events industry is there are a lot of women in the events industry, but you started this specifically for exhibitions, which I think can be defined a little differently. The trade show spaces can be a little bit different of a beast when it comes to the men that manage that, the companies in that space, or the workers that are there. Is that kind of the differentiator? Because if you say women in events network, I feel like there's a lot of women in events. I'm just asking a controversial question. Is it more on the expo side, on the trade show side that you saw the disparity between not having representation as women?

Oana Cipca:

We didn't research it. We were all of us in the exhibition industry and we didn't have this. So it was never about creating women in events. I think it's too broad. I think if you want to make change, you have to start with a niche and try to get that better. And I think our expertise is in exhibitions we all the time said. We had the idea of enlarging it, so adding congresses or really events in general, but I think we would lose momentum. It's a very specific market, the exhibition market, and we want to approach also suppliers and venues and organizers. These three really understand each other in terms of what needs to happen. So we focused on the exhibitions from the start. We will pursue with that.

Danica Tormohlen:

I would also add that like you mentioned Rachel, at the executive level and the leadership level, a lot of that in the exhibition world is, was dominated by men and there has been a lot of movement in terms of leadership positions for females taking C-level positions and CEO positions, president positions just in the last couple years, really last year was a lot of momentum in our space in terms of women taking leadership roles.

And if you take an event like UFI or, for instance, a SISO CEO, typically in the past maybe 5, 10, 15 years ago, it was a very male-dominant attendance. And so to have a place for women and a group that connects women together before an event, during an event. Like Oana said, this industry is very big but small. So it can feel to newcomers maybe unwelcoming, maybe flicky. And so we want to dispel that and make people, women in particular... When I started going to events 30 years ago, I may have been one of a handful of women, maybe only less than five at an event like a SISO CEO summit.

I am thinking about it as giving back to maybe what I didn't when I first started in the industry is really kind of my passion and what drives me to do this. And it is shifting, it is changing, but to have that group of women leaders in the industry and people who support each other and are there to support each other, it's really nice to have.

Rachel Andrews:

Yeah. Well, kudos to you all and the founders. I feel, I don't know people listening, I feel like if you get passionate about something enough to run home and make a website, you're probably pretty passionate about what you're doing. So kudos to you Oana. You're like, "That's enough. I'm going to do something about this." I love it. Really just grabbing the bull by the horns.

So let's pretend I know nothing about the industry. I've been in the industry two decades, but let's pretend I know nothing. Tell me about what I would need to know if I was joining the industry and maybe I'm in the exhibition space. Why should I join this network? Obviously for camaraderie and hang out with you cool cats. But what else? What are the goals? What should people be looking for when they're joining something like this?

Danica Tormohlen:

So if you join the North American chapter, there are chapters. Oana started it in Europe and it has grown. If you look on our website, womeninexhibitions.com is one place that people should go to find out more information about us. But there now are chapters all over the world and more regional chapters. So I lead our chapter in North America and a reason to join is to make connections, to learn more about the industry, but mostly it's about making connections with women who support other women.

So one of our benefits is we have our monthly meetings, online meetings, and they're always the third Thursday of the month at 12 noon Eastern. And so you can mark your calendars for the rest of the year if you want. And in January we had a great speaker. We had Jay Schwedelson. He gave some great marketing tips and he was phenomenal. And basically what our online meetings are typically like, we have a speaker and then we have a Q&A where we allow access to that speaker. You can ask whatever question you want. He has thousands of listeners to his podcast. He's a true marketing expert. In February, we have Janet Dell, who is the CEO of Freeman companies, and have that access to her to be able to talk to her about her career and her career path and how she's supporting women in the industry and what it's been like, her journey.

And then after we have the Q&A, we always do breakouts and we do random breakouts where you get put in a room with three to five other people who are on the call and you just get to network and get to know somebody on the call. So we really, again, are trying to promote connection among women so that when you're next time at a meeting or when you need to tap somebody for advice, you have somebody. It's all about relationships in this industry. So that's one thing that we do.

So monthly meeting is one of our benefits. And then we also have in-person meetups at industry events. We just want to have a touchpoint for women to, again, connect at a meeting there were what? Close to over 4,000 people or around 4,000 people at that meeting. So to break it down to a smaller group where you can make a one-on-one connection with women who are all there to meet other women and to support other women.

So our next in-person meetup, I'm going to give a quick shameless plug, is at the SISO CEO Summit on April 1st and that's at the Omni in Austin. And then our next online meeting is Thursday, March 20th at noon Eastern and we have Devon Pasha who is going to talk about emceeing and the importance and value of an emcee at an event. So those are some of the benefits that we have for the North American chapter.

Rachel Andrews:

I love getting people involved. So definitely check it out, if not just to make a new friend but to learn. The learning aspect of it is awesome too. And Janet Dell is inspirational, so I would definitely check that out. But Oana, tell us about the international side as well because I know that you have a strong presence over there as well.

Oana Cipca:

Yes, for sure, Rachel. First of all, I just feel so proud to hear what Danica all does together with the team in North America because this is for me something that is a dream that comes true. To hear all the activities and also the way we are organized as women in exhibitions with chapters worldwide, North America is a very strong chapter we have and so is UK chapter and the DACH and France and the Dutch chapter here in the Netherlands. All these chapters, what they do, they organize activities. So the idea that I had was to create something that is international but has regional impact because we have different needs in different regions of the world.

If in North America, networking and having a community put together is one big strength. And in Germany, we need to lobby to get more women in the top. In the Netherlands there are a lot of women in the top already. We have other things that we need to focus on. In this way... And UK the same, a lot of women in the top and we see them grow and we see this middle management really making huge steps.

This is what I call a dream come true. As far as I'm concerned, we made it, even though we have a lot of things still to do. And yeah, it makes me feel proud that we are here and we can share this with you on this podcast. It looks like dreams can come true if you work hard enough and embrace yourself with a good community of like-minded people.

So yeah, for the international, for Women in Exhibitions International, you can see it as an umbrella organization of all the chapters, independent chapters, by the way. All of them can decide on their own program as long as they follow our branding and as long as they all connect with us and share. And members from other countries can join the events. We are all fine. We are all under one umbrella, but acting independently and as one voice towards the industry as a whole.

And what makes it interesting for us is Women in Exhibitions International, by the way, I'm not on my own in this. I'm together with Sonia Thomas as executive director and with Sylvia who is also from Informa, just like Danica, who is helping us as well. So we are with the three of us forming that board of the Women Exhibitions International and together we organized for the chapters and for the community and the industry a world summit. We had the first one in Maastricht, not last, the year before, and last year we had a summit in Milan. So we are looking for the beautiful locations in the world. And this year we are going to London where we hope to get even more people. Every time, last time we grew in attendance with 40%. I hope we can pursue with that in London as well. I think so because we will be doing the world summit together with the UK chapter who's going to host it as well at London XL.

We are again making a step further in that journey of bringing education together for women. And you have to see it like the following. The idea of the summit was not so much to have yet another summit, but to really answer a question from our communities worldwide. What we do, we do a little research beforehand to discover what are the topics, what is interesting for our communities to learn about, what topics in the industry as well and try to bring that to the other in the summit.

For this year's summit, I think we will be doing something with accelerating action because it's something that us women, we can talk a lot about things, but we need to really accelerate action. We can read many books about what needs to be done differently. I'm myself guilty, I'm guilty on that. I read all the books of Brené Brown about vulnerability and everything. And I'm a big fan of Brené Brown. But if you don't do anything with those learnings in your career and things that you want to gain in your professional life, then you can keep reading since nothing happens.

So I think that with this year's summit, we want to make sure that women accelerate their actions and to make sure their employees help them in their acceleration. So create them, get together where we mix this and invite men to the conversation because we can't do it without them.

Rachel Andrews:

Yeah, that's a good point. I always say you have to bring in advocates as well. If we operate in a silo, we'll never get anywhere together.

Okay, so you covered so many things in your what are we doing internationally that I'm blown away. So the World Summit, is that what it's called? Because I want to make sure that we say this right for the people listening. So it's the World Summit Women in Exhibitions, correct?

Oana Cipca:

Women in Exhibitions World Summit.

Rachel Andrews:

World Summit. Okay. I love it. I know you said the acceleration of women in the industry is your goal for this summit. What type of event is it? A one-day event? Multiple? Are there expos as part of the Women in Exhibition?

Oana Cipca:

Usually it's a two-day event. This year we want to organize a one-day event with a dinner the evening before.

Danica Tormohlen:

Let's tell her a little bit about the one in Milan. That would give you some insight into it. We're still in the planning stages for the one for 2025, but we just had one in Milan in November. And it was a dinner and then a full day event and then another half a day of an event too.

And I want to tell you, I spoke at the event and it was really a powerful event. One of the things that really stood out to me was the international connection. So if you want to make international connections at that level, that we have our North America chapter where we have really tried to facilitate connections within North America, but the international group, you really make international connections. And so that is super helpful if you want to bring any kind of event internationally. And also it really just opens your eyes as a female leader at your organization. You can learn something from all over the world in your career.

But one of the sessions that stood out to me was there was a woman who was a C-level executive from RX Global, which is one of the largest trade show organizing companies in the world. And she gave her personal and her career journey as a gay female in the industry. And I mean, shared from beginning to her executive level. Very vulnerable, very personal story, which I have never ever heard anything like that at an industry event. And afterwards people were coming up to her and talking to her. I sat at dinner with her that evening. And it was just really a moving talk and something that you would not hear or see anywhere else. So that was really something that stood out to me.

Rachel Andrews:

That's awesome. That sounds like a great event for folks to go to and meet other women and network and learn more about career journeys. I think that's the one thing that I love listening to. It's just how people got to where they got. And one thing that I know you're both saying is when you go to these meetups or when you network with people at industry events, a lot of it is yeah, yes, to meet a new friend, but it's also to learn from each other and gain those connections. You never know when the next time you're going to be looking for a job is or when you need career advice or if you're encountering success or challenges or whatever and you need someone to bounce ideas off of. It's like the power of a network like this is incredible. For me, that's the reason I would go to something like this is to learn from other people. And the more that women can grow together and talk through those things together, the more powerful I think their network is.

Oana Cipca:

Absolutely. And I think just also to clarify because we are called Women in Exhibitions, but I always get the question, are men welcome? Please join us. Please come. Because it's an open event for everyone in the industry and I think men especially will be enlightened with the knowledge that comes out of there and they can support us a little bit more and advocate. And I think it's also something I'm proud of because we had in Milan more men than in Maastricht. And in this way we start growing and I expect a good mix in London to be honest as well. So everyone is welcome to our event, definitely.

Danica Tormohlen:

We had several men. We had a male moderator for the session, for the full program, and then also the head of AEO, the organization that's in the UK for exhibition organizers, attended. So we are, again, gaining momentum and love to have support from men. As you could see, Rachel, there were lots of men at our event at PCMA.

Rachel Andrews:

Yeah, definitely. Kudos to your whole team and kudos to what you're doing in the industry. I know it's a lot of work to start a movement like this and it's a lot of work to start a network, but it sounds fruitful. It sounds like your members are loving your content and I feel like this is just the beginning for you all. I can't wait to interview you on a podcast in two years when you've tripled and have a million members and you've created all this acceleration for women in our industry. I just wanted to give you two a quick little shout out. And then I also want to ask just outside of Women in Exhibitions, what have you found in the industry is the best way for someone to network or the best way to, I like to say rise and lift with others? As you all start to get more senior in your roles, how are you mentoring the newer generation coming in?

Danica Tormohlen:

Informa has a formal mentor/mentee program that I just joined last November. We've met three times online and one time in person. So I would say get involved if you are a mentee. My mentee just graduated from college last May and she's been in her position less than a year, so fresh out of school. It's been a great experience for me and for her too. She brings an agenda to each meeting and we go over what she wants to learn about. And we're in different areas of the country. She's based in New York, I'm based in Kansas City. She's in a different division of Informa Connect. She's in marketing. I'm in content. But we share lessons from each other.

And so that kind of leads me to my next piece of advice, which is get involved, which is what I'm doing by taking action, by being involved and volunteering my time. That's kind of been my way to make connections in the industry over all of my whole career. I've been on education committees. I've joined different associations. And raise your hand and get involved. The best way to get to know somebody is to serve on a committee with them or serve on a board with them. You are going to make the best connection of your life and you're going to learn something. You're going to become a better leader.

You're right, Oana, you don't go into it looking to grow what you can get out of it. It's what you bring to it. But you get so much out of it. Even though I'm volunteering my time, I get way more out of it than I put into it. I would highly advise getting involved. Even if you have no experience, even if you're just brand new to the industry, you can send out an email, you can volunteer to help get a speaker, or do whatever, take out the trash, I don't know, get a venue for the next meetup, send a marketing email. It's not an overwhelming request. Usually everybody will take the volunteer help. So I would say volunteer.

Showing up is half of the battle, also support. Being here, being at a meetup, being at an online event, showing up is showing your support. That is better maybe than taking out the trash. Just show up.

Rachel Andrews:

I think putting yourself out there is hard for some people, but there are ways that you can get involved. If you don't want to go to a meetup, you can also go to your monthly online meetings. You can listen to the content. But you can also personally reach out to people and say, "Hey, I'd love to pick your brain on this." I love your comment. You can do something so small. Anything contributes to helping nonprofits out or member associations, things like that that help. I always say I'm never too senior to help jump in and pack boxes. I will do whatever role and job that it takes to get something done, or at least I try to in all my free time. But I try to be that person always.

Oana Cipca:

It's so true what you say, Rachel. And I think we also discovered that it's really difficult for more junior colleagues in our industry to really get involved. Sometimes we don't have the resources for them to join an event. And what we did, for example, in the last summit in Milan was raising this Rising Stars sponsorship that we ask companies to sponsor us for certain places at the summit. And with that, we invited newcomers to the industry but also students to come and join our event. And we had 15 people. We ended up with 15 new people in the room. Never went to an event, work in our industry, make many hours a day. And in this way we are showing the newcomers how beautiful this industry is, at the same time we keep them in the industry and we show them also where they can come so we are not losing them. We attract more talent with that. So that is also a little piece I'm so proud. Because yeah, it helps and we need the young generation to discover our industry.

Danica Tormohlen:

That was great that we had scholarships for sure for that. And we also open up, Rachel, I don't know if you noticed there were several students at PPMA. We welcome any students who are in hospitality and want to get into this industry. You are more than welcome to join us for any of our online meetings in North America or our in-person meetup. So we've had lots of students attend our events over the years and we let them come for free and join for free as if they're a student. So we have a lot of ways to get involved with our organization.

Rachel Andrews:

That's amazing. Any final words before we wrap today? Ladies, you've provided a wealth of knowledge and some great tidbits for people to take away.

Oana Cipca:

Something that really helped me is to know my strength but also my weaknesses and do something about the weaknesses. These days we are so super connected. We can actually train in anything we feel we're not good at. If I am to give something, know your strength, but also know your weaknesses and don't leave them there. Just do something about it. And it's easier said than done, but something that someone once told me and it helped.

Danica Tormohlen:

And I will add that theme of International Women's Day Accelerating Action, just take a step, raise your hand, get involved, do something like how Oana said. You can sit back and complain about things or you can just take little steps and get involved and do something about it.

Please feel free to reach out to me if anybody wants to get involved or even just make a connection and have somebody to call on if they have any questions in the industry. I'm here and I hope to see a lot of people at our next in-person meetup or online.

Rachel Andrews:

Awesome. Thank you ladies so much for joining. I'm inspired. Thank you for what you do for our industry. If you are in the exhibition space, definitely check out Women in Exhibitions, or if you're interested in the exhibition space, you don't have to be in it already and you just want to make new connections, like they said, just reach out, raise your hand, or just attend. That's the first step. So thank you so much and happy International Women's Day everyone, and thank you to all the ladies and the advocates out there that support women daily. So thanks ladies and I'll see you at the next industry event.

Danica Tormohlen:

Thanks, Rachel.

Oana Cipca:

See you. Thank you so much.

Alyssa Peltier:

Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews:

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Felicia Asiedu:

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Felicia Asiedu:

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Alyssa Peltier:

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