STUDY: Ensono Finds Only One in Five Tech Conference Keynotes Are Given By Women

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., March 12, 2019 — Ensono™, a leading hybrid IT services provider, today released the findings of its new research report, “Speak Up: Bringing More Women’s Voices to Tech Conferences.” Ensono surveyed 500 women across the U.S. and U.K. who attended a tech conference in their careers to uncover their experiences and attitudes toward the representation of women at tech events. Ensono also audited three years’ worth of keynote and standalone speaker lineups from 18 major technology conferences around the world to determine the ratio of women to men.

The inspiration for the study came from Ensono Director of Public Cloud Product Lin Classon’s experience at a tech conference. She tweeted a picture of an empty women’s restroom, highlighting the lack of women at the event and also the larger issue of the industry’s gender gap.

“The lack of female speakers at industry conferences is a quantifiable picture of how women are underrepresented,” Classon said. “The industry still has a long way to go, but it’s research like this that provides companies with data and tools to initiate change.”

Between the survey around women’s experiences at tech conferences and the audit uncovering the number of keynote presentations given to women, here are some of the top findings from the report:

• Only 25 percent of tech conference keynotes in the last three years were women.
• Seventy percent of women surveyed who have sat on a panel at a tech conference report being the only woman.
• One in four women have experienced sexual harassment at a tech conference.
• Seventy-six percent of women are more likely to attend a conference with a keynote speaker, panelist or other programming that features a woman.
• There was a five percent increase in the number of female speakers in tech conference lineups from 2016 to 2018.

In addition to the findings, the report outlines recommendations for companies to assume responsibility and commit to concrete, actionable change. Some of the key strategies suggested include internally promoting speaking opportunities at tech events, building training programs to advance speaking skills, establishing a set of criteria that determines company participation in an event based on its level of inclusivity, and creating an internal code of conduct for off-site events.

“It’s our hope that members of the tech community encourage their companies to take part in this opportunity for change — whether they are a part of senior leadership or just starting their career,” said Lisa Agona, CMO of Ensono. “At Ensono, we fully support our female associates and stand with them as we progress toward gender parity in the tech industry.”

To learn more about women’s attitudes and experiences at tech conferences, as well as how companies can be a part of the solution, download the full report here.

About Ensono

Ensono helps IT leaders be the catalyst for change by harnessing the power of hybrid IT to transform their businesses. We drive digital transformation by enabling increased agility and scalability through the modernization to public cloud. Our broad services portfolio from mainframe to cloud, powered by an intelligent governance platform, is designed to help our clients operate for today and optimize for tomorrow. We are award-winning certified experts in AWS and Azure and recognized as Microsoft Datacenter Transformation Partner of the Year. Ensono has nearly 2,000 associates around the world and is headquartered in greater Chicago. Visit us at www.ensono.com.

In June 2018, Ensono acquired the hosted data center business of Wipro.

For media inquiries, please contact Beth Burghgraef at: [email protected].