It’s fair to say that movers and shakers in the AV industry – driven largely, but not exclusively, by AVIXA – have been, for many years, working hard to even out gender diversity and equality. And as Rebecca Khelifa-Bonk, PR manager for ISE, confirms in thought leader piece for this special edition, AV has indeed become more inclusive, with an increasing number of women entering both business and technical roles. Things are, she says, “on the right track” – although she does add that there is still more to be done to build a genuinely inclusive work environment in order to attract more women into the industry.
This outlook is backed up by comments in our main cover story feature – to which Khelifa-Bonk also contributed – alongside troubling information on wage equity. A study carried out for AVIXA in 2021 found that women in pro AV were earning between 79 and 89 percent as much as their male colleagues. Since then there has been some improvement, with a new pay survey published this September showing the gap narrowing to between 86 and 94 percent – still unacceptable, of course. Indeed, as Joé Lloyd, AVIXA senior director of business development, says: “While the industry continues to make strides in equality… we unfortunately do not see equality in either the percentage of women in the industry, compared to their male counterparts, nor pay.”
So there’s still a lot of work to be done, although contributors to our feature were cautiously optimistic, with Sadie Groom, co-chair of AVIXA Women’s Council UK and chief executive of PR and marketing company Bubble Agency, noting that men in the industry are generally supportive and keen to see women progress; and Toni Moss, managing director of systems integrator Strive AV confirming that there are more women in AV than ever before. Click here to read the full feature.
Elsewhere in this edition, we investigate AV vendor sustainability, also taking a close look at Sony’s green credentials, whilst reminding you of our recently released, dedicated Sustainability in AV eBook; check out transferable skills across AV and broadcast; and deep-dive into edtech, with our annual AV in education feature.
See below for our digital edition.
