As we kick off the new year with a fresh slate of exciting topics to be covered across our 2021 event line up, we have been reflecting on how important it is to stand by our commitment to support a diverse IAB Canada thought leadership community. In 2020, we launched our Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce and pledged to eliminate discriminative taxonomy from all of our communications and programming. We also delivered a public statement that we hoped would resonate with our membership community as we make efforts to provide opportunities for a more diverse group of leadership.
We have had several discussions within the Taskforce, our internal team and the IAB Canada Board about the importance of creating diverse speaker line-ups for our events. As we carefully craft our narratives and programs, we look to our partners and invite you to contribute as keynote speakers, panelists and in other creative ways. Our industry clearly understands that we have a systemic diversity issue and all too often, we are faced with the stark reality that a diverse group of subject matter experts can be difficult to curate. So, let’s change that.
In 2021, as we reach out to our members for speakers, thought leadership and other opportunities, we would like to invite you to pause, and consider providing a colleague with a chance to bring their magic to the stage. Whether it is a less experienced speaker or that introverted genius who tends to stay out of the limelight, we openly invite your nominations, and in doing so, help build acumen and exposure to support the diversity of our industry. Our community is filled with excellence and this year we would like to challenge the conventional ideology of what a company’s best foot forward looks like.