W@RMN Presents: Summer Speaker Series
Women @ RMN (W@RMN) is RetailMeNot’s employee resource group dedicated to creating a path to a more balanced representation of women at all levels of the company. Since launching in April 2017, W@RMN has been diligently creating and fostering a platform for women and men to develop and support each other. After gathering feedback from members on what they’d like to see from the ERG, W@RMN has been focusing on bringing a balance of educational sessions dedicated to RMN employees, a well as sessions that are open to the public.
In June and July, W@RMN partnered with Breaking the Glass, a professional networking group for women, to host some of its first public events since its launch. These events kicked off a Summer speaker series centered around bringing experienced leaders in the community together to discuss topics that matter to both women and men.
Launching the series in June was a panel discussion on male allies at work. How can men combat unconscious bias and help to empower their female coworkers? Tackling questions like this one were Jason Koppe (Engineering Manager at Indeed), Deeksha Srinath (Technical Evangelist at Curb Home Energy Management), Chris Kaiser (Director of Public Policy at Texas Against Sexual Assault) and RetailMeNot’s John Adcock (Senior VP of People).
With nearly 120 people in attendance, the panel reflected on the strong women in their lives, sexism they’ve witnessed and how they’ve been inspired to amplify females in the workplace. They even provided their own interpretation of the term “mansplaining” to the sincere amusement of the women in the audience.
The second public event in July focused on the power of “no”. Attendees had the privilege of listening to Gina Helfrich, PhD (Communications Director and Program Manager for Diversity & Inclusion at NumFocus), Tanya Tarr (Vice President, North America at advantageSPRING), Gay Gaddis (CEO & Founder of T3), and Michael Manning (President of Rocksauce Studios) discuss the art of push back and advocating for oneself
This engaging discussion left everyone in the room inspired and ready to seize any opportunity they could. This panel was particularly exciting because W@RMN was able to host this panel discussion opened to the public, in addition to an in-depth workshop led by Tanya Tarr that was dedicated solely to RMN employees. Attendees learned how to take push back and turn it into an opportunity that can benefit everyone. As Gay Gaddis wisely stated, “No isn’t the end — it’s just the beginning.”
The turnout and support we’ve seen from men and women in our community during the last two events has been incredibly motivating. We love partnering with organizations that share in our passion and mission of empowering women and men. These panels were especially fun and filled with uplifting energy, and W@RMN was proud to be a part of it all.
W@RMN is excited to continue its dedication to bringing awesome events to our community. Huge thanks to Mary Chauvin, Breaking the Glass and all our amazing panelists for helping us shatter this ceiling one crack at a time.
