‘Great ideas don’t have genitals’ – Engine's Debbie Klein picks up The Drum’s Woman of the Year title at SheSays Awards

Debbie Klein, CEO of the Engine Group, has been named The Drum’s Woman of the Year at the SheSays Awards.Picking up her title, Klein said: “Great ideas don’t have genitals. If all of us and the people we know repeat that then eventually people will believe it.” Speaking to The Drum at the event, which took place at sponsor Isobar’s offices in London on Thursday night, Klein explained that she felt that the gender indifference has moved on since the early days of her career but that the industry still had some way to go in supporting women coming in at the grass roots. “The issue of why there aren’t enough women in senior positions is a long standing one,” she said. “But it comes back to the fact that there aren’t enough role models. It’s important women coming in see enough women at the top to know there is a path for them.” She added: “Most women are too sensible to sleep on the floor and eat pot noodles for two years but that is what you sometimes need to do to get into the creative industry. So awards like the SheSays Awards are important for celebrating people who are coming in.”However, Klein did say she hoped one day soon the industry won’t need initiatives like SheSays, and that women succeeding in the creative sector will simply be a norm. “My daughter is 10 and if she comes into this industry I hope that by then we won’t need these kinds of networks to show that women have to stick together.” The awards – judged by D&AD president Laura Jordan Bambach and BETC London’s Rosie Bardales among others – look to champion female creativity. The Industry award was given to Katy Davis for her work on RSA's short film ‘The Power of Empathy’ (shown below). The Student Award went to Soofiya Chaudry while the Idea Without Limits Award went to Louise Philo for Monkeyton, a toy designed to help children learn sign language.

RSA Short Brene Brown Gobblynne from The RSA on Vimeo.