Women in Cable Telecommunications is a 30-year-old nonprofit group nearly 8,000 members strong that was borne out of a necessity to ensure that women in cable telecommunications were well educated and empowered to help transform the cable industry.
In the traditional wireless space, two women’s groups operate today: The Women’s Wireless Leadership Forum is a voluntary education, leadership and networking group that operates under the auspices of PCIA and is a sister organization to PCIA’s State Wireless Association Programs. It is headed by Patti Ringo of ExteNet Systems. The Mobile Marketing Association also has a Women in Wireless Committee, which was formed in 2007. The MMA committee is led by the MMA’s Kristine Van Dillen.
Today, as cable MSOs build out wireless licenses and cable content providers like CNN and The Weather Channel increase their mobile activities, RCR Wireless News spoke with WICT President and CEO Maria Brennan, who was just hired in September to lead the women’s advocacy group.
WICT’s primary mission is “to develop women leaders who transform industry,” Brennan said. The cable industry has a good track record of promoting and retaining women in the sector, she said, but there is always more that can be done and that’s the job of WICT. Overall, women still earn between 75 cents to 78 cents for every dollar a man earns with the same experience, which hasn’t changed much in the last decade or two. “Until we have the same level of parity with our male counterparts, groups like our will continue to exist.”
WICT also conducts a PAR initiative, which tracks Pay equity, Advancement opportunities and Resources for work/life balance in the cable industry. Full-year 2009 statistics are set to come out in December.
On a positive note, Brennan cited Catalyst Inc. statistics that found that when companies embrace hiring women, they are “irrefutably more profitable.” Catalyst is a nonprofit that works with businesses to expand opportunities for women in business. In a business where women are included in the board room, C-level suites and at other layers of the business, those companies tend to have better employee benefits and better employee retention. Plus, women and men sometimes have different management styles, which different employees thrive in, Brennan noted.
Further, if companies are interested in knowing their customers, women now account for about 75% to 85% of household buying decisions, she added.
Brennan has 22 years of executive management experience in the nonprofit sector; most recently she was the president of the women’s advocacy-based nonprofit group American Women in Radio and Television. Brennan also is serving her third term on the Federal Communications Commission’s diversity board.
