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'Gender out, Values in' - ITV, Guardian, SheSays & Zone female business leaders to crowdsource what gender-neutral business should look like at The Drum Live

July 3, 2014 | 3 min read

Female business leaders from ITV, The Guardian, SheSays and Zone are to challenge why the topic of female versus male gender issues have become overblown in business, while brainstorming and crowdsourcing what a gender-netural business model should look like at The Drum Live next week.

Sarah Speake, director of commercial marketing and research at ITV, Harriet Minter, head of women in leadership at The Guardian, Emma Sexton director, and Amanda McKenna, board director of independent digital agency Zone will together thrash out their views on the subject of gender, diversity and how to kill the culture of “presenteeism”.

ITV’s Sarah Speake said the gender argument of women being “victimised” and underrepresented in the workplace and has become laboured, adding “it bores me to death”.

Instead she will look to explore how and why diversity, rather than gender alone, is critical for any business' success. “This should be about how do we redesign work – not perpetuating our own negative stereotype,” she said.

Meanwhile Sexton will question why research has shown that nearly half of full-time employees resent their flexible-hour working colleagues.

“How do we kill the culture of presenteeism? Why is it ok to work from the US office,for example, but not from home? We need to move to a culture which grades performance based on output not input,” she said.

Also the issue of what can be done to encourage men to take advantage of flexible working opportunities will be tackled in the interactive session.

“Until they're doing it too it won't become normalised and we'll still see it as something people do when they want to take their foot of the gas,” added Sexton.

To fit in with The Drum Live’s theme of ‘What can be Achieved in a Day’ – during which The Drum will curate an edition of the magazine live in front of the audience – the speakers will crowdsource ideas from the audience before thrashing out what the best route forward is for all businesses.

Throughout the day they will come up with 10 key takeaways for delegates to take back and apply to their own working environments.

For more information visit The Drum Live's dedicated website.

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