With Women – Addressing the underrepresentation of women’s voices in the media

The issue of gender parity in PR and the media

Only 30% of PR businesses have women CEOs, a trend we are very happy to be bucking. Therefore, With is proud to be an agency founded and led by women.

In 2023, Women In Journalism revealed that only 30% of media experts are women. Whilst work to address gender parity at events has been done, the same cannot be said for underrepresentation of women in the media. 

So we had a think about what we as a business could do.

Media training – a key solution

And it all starts with media training. You wouldn’t give someone skis for the first time and plonk them on top of a black run. In the same way, just because you are eloquent it doesn’t mean you can immediately master a media interview. 

So getting more training to more women was an obvious first step. 

Happily, the With team has decades of experience in media training executives and can bring that highly valuable skill set to life for people who can’t always access it.

The With Women programme

With that in mind, we launched With Women, our programme of FREE media training for women leaders. From start-up founders to execs who had not been offered the chance to shape their voice, we began engaging groups of women. 

We kicked off with a partnership with Management Today – led by a fabulous (woman) editor – and trained some of their readership. We partnered with groups including Now You’re Talking, Women of Fintech, The Heard, NatWest and Chief. Our CEO took to the Women In Tech stage at Web Summit for an en-masse training session. 

From in person sessions in the UK to virtual sessions for women around the world, the media training has seriously taken off. In 2023 we have trained around 200 women.

And it doesn’t stop there. We have set up a WhatsApp group for the women who have received our training and we help connect them with the journalists we know want a wider range of spokespeople in their articles. With former trainees already landing in the pages of the national press we couldn’t be happier.

If you are a woman who wants free media training, email WithWomen@welcometowith.com