Digital Women November 2019 Official Photos and Event Recap Part 1

What a brilliant day! Digital Women took place on the 15th November 2019 at the Natwest Conference Centre in Bishopsgate in Central London, we were joined by 250 women looking to increase their digital skills and be empowered by inspirational talks and practical learning. Here is part 1 the official photos and event recap focusing on the first part of the day on the main stage. ( Part 2 will focus on the afternoon skills sessions which we ran in 2 rooms consecutively) All in all we had 22 speakers and panellists sharing their knowledge with the community.

First up (after some clicker issues, we can laugh about it now! and an intro to the day by Lucy Hall) we welcomed Julie Baker, Head of Enterprise at Natwest Business to the stage:Julie talked about the research from the Rose Review and the issues female startups and business have faced, one of the stand out facts from the research was that if women started and scaled companies at same rate as men it would add £250bn to the UK economy.

Next to take the stage for the Keynote session was Emmy McCarthy, Emmy kicked off the day with a meaningful and inspirational talk about communities. The key takeaway was that everyone has the power to change the world one person at a time and that meaningful communities will save the world. We think so to Emmy! A powerful message and the perfect way to start the day.

Ms Great Britain finalist Shelley Grierson was next to capture our imagination talking about her journey as a finalist as Ms Great Britain and how using the platform for good drove her into action to return great results for not only her personal brand but business and support for charities. She believes by going out of your comfort zone you can achieve anything you set your mind to.

After 2 inspirational talks we were treated to a practical session from Lucia Banjo, Account Manager from Facebook and Instagram, Lucia was a last minute and very welcome addition to the programme coming back from last March’s event. Lucia talked about creating content from your mobile phone using facebooks mobile studio with case studies from brands using only mobiles to create thumb stopping content that hugely increased campaign ROI with absolutely zero creative budget. A practical session with plenty of takeaways.

After networking and refreshments we welcomed Leanne Rice to the DigitalWomen stage. Leanne talked about landing her dream role at the British Legion creating content for the Poppy Appeal and how they used bold storytelling to retell the story to the younger generation. An inspiring and though provoking talk with plenty of takeaways for using storytelling to appeal to new demographics.

And then there was debbiedooodah (Aka Debbie Clarke), telling it like it really is in a high energy talk. The thing that captured our attention was the frankness and honesty of this talk, we heard a little about Debbies Struggles and how she’d pulled her self through being a single mum with cancer. She talked about the issues with online entreprenuers who sell 6 or 7 figure lifestyles and then threw out the realities of these techniques. A really insightful and welcome talk with roars of laughter coming from the crowd!

The final Talk before lunch came from Irelands Jane Kavanagh, Jane recently launched a tech start up, a tool called feedalpha which helps businesses find content to share for social media. She talked about the struggles and highs of running a start up in the tech space and gave some brilliant advice about having a mentor. She stressed the importance of mentorship and how an outside voice can really help to push your business forward. Another key takeaway was to build your team because you can’t do it all alone.

After a packed morning we enjoyed a hot lunch and networking before a packed afternoon of 20 minute digital skill sessions.. We will share the highlights from part 2 of the day shortly and will put the link here.

You can find and download the official photos here: https://mooiefeephotography.pic-time.com/-digitalwomen1/gallery Please use the tag #digitalwomen when sharing on social media and where possible attribute to Mooie Fee Photography who was our marvellous event photographer on the day!