Rise: “Nothing changes unless everyone’s involved”

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the latest edition of the Rise Awards confirmed that the event’s mission of recognising the talents of inspirational women and diversity advocates continues to expand its reach. Held at the Troxy, London, in partnership with Sky and EMG/Gravity Media, the awards delivered winners in 14 categories, selected from a record-breaking 424 nominations, with Australia, France, Malaysia, Norway, Spain, UK and US all represented on the night.

“The atmosphere was so welcoming and supportive,” enthuses Sadie Groom – Founder and CEO of broadcast gender diversity organisation Rise. “One of the things I’ve always said about Rise is that nothing changes unless everyone’s involved, i.e. [in terms of] gender. So it was great that there was also a big community of men there as well, supporting people they mentor or who they work with.”

This also reflects the diversity of the event’s initial judging panel, with 10 people – “various in skill-sets, male and female” – sifting through all of the entries and creating the final shortlists. Each category is then assigned a judge, who appoints their own diverse and international panel. The shortlists are revealed at IBC, with the final judging taking place ahead of the ceremony in November.

Going above and beyond

“, I know she has inspired other women to participate in events and join panels” Sadie Groom, Rise

Introduced by Rise in 2022, the Special Recognition Award was initially inspired by the achievements of Mitzi Dominguez – CEO of Clear-Com and president of HME. Groom explains: “I realised that her role was bigger [than that of the category] she had been nominated in, so I wanted to give her something else. That was the starting point for a category that’s really all about going above and beyond.

“Then in the second year it was Claire Wilkie, [CEO and founder] of Limitless Broadcast, who had been through a really hard time and come out the other end, and the entry really pulled at my heartstrings.”

The latest recipient - Lesley McGilp, General Manager of Sign Language Translation (SLT) and Access Services at Red Bee Media – had equally gone above and beyond to help others. “With Lesley, I am slightly deaf myself so it’s great to see someone who can do sign language, has built a team for accessibility at Red Bee, and has made a massive difference to the lives of people who are deaf or hard of hearing,” adds Groom.

The Woman of the Year Award, determined by Rise’s global advisory boards and open to any woman from across the sector and at any level, was presented to Megan Mauck, Senior Vice-President of Media Operations at NBCUniversal, who was recognised as having made a ‘significant contribution within her field and to the industry at large’.

“As well as building the department that she works in at NBCUniversal, Meghan has also been incredibly active at speaking events,” says Groom. “That might sound like an easy thing, but it’s not, and a lot of women don’t do it. But because she has been so involved in public speaking, I know she has inspired other women to participate in events and join panels. We also received many testimonial videos and it’s clear she’s very well-respected at NBCUniversal and beyond.”

Career journeys

Invited to consider whether she thinks the original objective of the Rise Awards has been fulfilled, and how the event continues to be relevant to an industry in the midst of phenomenal business and technological change, Groom notes: “The original objective was about finding a way to promote the amazing women that were in the industry, but were hidden – and it’s really done that. Look at how many recruiters were there this year, and quite rightly. But what’s also happened is that it’s really shone a light on the fact that women are doing so many different roles within the sector and that they are out there globally in different sizes of companies.”

Indeed, the ability of the awards to highlight achievements by women at companies of contrasting structure and scope was neatly illustrated at this year’s event. “We had two winners from Double Take Sports, which has a team of about 15 people, then you also have winners from the likes of Red Bee and BT Media, which are obviously huge companies,” she says.

Year by year, it’s also proven fascinating to see how “awards alumni” are progressing in their career journeys. Groom points to Charlotte Latham from CueScript, which also provides the teleprompting on the night, as an example: “She won an award in our first year, since when she has been promoted several times and now has a director’s position. So to watch those kind of developments is very interesting.”

Encouraging engineers

A big part of the broader work of Rise is about improving opportunities for women at the start or important pivot-points of their careers – hence the hugely successful mentoring programme that “continues to grow and grow”.

“This year we are mentoring 137 women across the globe, and have mentees and mentors in the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, India, Canada and America,” continues Groom. “The networks around the programme have really built up as well, and we’ve had great meet-ups at shows including NAB New York and Broadcast India.”

Meanwhile, Groom is planning further developments around the Rise C-Suite Programme, which made its debut in January 2024 with an intensive, residential workshop designed to accelerate progress to the C-Suite. “It’s been really successful, but we noticed that there is a gap between the women that tend to be on the programme and in the C-Suite, so at IBC we did a taster session for a programme called Career Accelerator which will address this” – not least in broadcast engineering, where the representation of women has always been low.

Indeed, Rise is also targeting technical roles through the Rise Academy, its initiative aimed at delivering practical media technology experiences, career resources and work experience opportunities to young people. Now overseen by a team including former BT Sport Chief Engineer Andy Beale, the Academy has seen more than 5,000 children at schools across the UK during 2024. “One of the goals there is to show children that if you want to work in TV or film you don’t just have to be a screenwriter, director, producer or editor, you can also do other jobs – including in engineering.”

But does Groom feel that there has been a noticeable improvement in terms of non-craft representation? “Definitely – it’s slow, but it is improving. And one of the things we have been able to do with Rise is to find other approaches to mentoring. A lot of female engineers are in outside broadcast and can’t do the [regular mentoring] programme because they’re away covering sports events. So last year we held a two-day OB programme because a group of female engineers came to us and asked if we could find a couple of days in the sports schedule. It was an amazing event – we had 35 women there – and we’re going to do it again in January.”

Not least for the fact that it is, in many ways, an entirely new area in which fresh roles are still being created, virtual production is regarded as “another potential big community/opportunity. There is a need for women DOPs, animators, all sorts of roles.”

Money makes things happen

With plans for more outreach activities, including at colleges and universities, and Rise operating as a not-for-profit with an “incredibly lean team”, it’s not surprising that the organisation continues to invite further practical and financial support – the latter possibly becoming more acute as there are worrying signs that, in media and many other industries, D&I investment is plateauing.

“Every penny that we get goes out the door to do something,” says Groom. “We’ve got a very, very small team, and most people do everything for free. So yes, we need money to make things happen, and we also always need venues; there’s so much that we want to do event-wise next year around the world. We’ve launched a proper chapter in India now and more will be announced soon, and all of those will require advisory boards and so on. Which means that the need for people to do and support all of this, in whatever capacity, is always increasing too.”