ICCA’s commitment to achieving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) plays out at the 62nd Congress in Bangkok this week with a network of speakers hailing from all regions.
Europe leads in speaker representation, with 33 industry opinion leaders. This is followed by Asia-Pacific, with 32 speakers. There are 19 speakers from North America, four each from Latin America and the Middle East, and two from Africa. Thirteen others are from other parts of the world. Gender representation is also balanced, with 49 female speakers out of 107 speakers altogether.
Ksenija Polla, ICCA’s head of education and legacy programmes, said it was an “intentional” move to have all voices represented at the congress.
“Our objective is to make sure that everybody, who is part of ICCA Congress 2023, can relate to those people on stage, see themselves reflected in their messages, and connect with them.”
She added that this year’s event promises a “brand new experience”, and empowers every delegate “to be part of that change for our industry, globally”.
ICCA has made Thami Nkadimeng its poster child for DEI as well as the congress emcee. A global citizen known as The Message Architect with a passion for bettering the world by untangling complex topics through conversations with presidents, leaders, executives and organisations around the world, Nkadimeng is also 2023 Top 100 Most Influential People of African Descent under 40 in support of The United Nations.
Her experience reaches beyond the space of meetings and events, as she has also built her extensive career in several industries, such as finance, science and technology, and tourism. She believes this gives her an advantage in the meetings and events industry, which is interconnected with many other sectors.
“You can’t think of associations and events without including things like home affairs, security industry, transport industry, health industry – I could continue. Everything needs to come together. We’ve stuck with buzzwords like collaboration, but we haven’t actually actioned them.”
Nkadimeng urged industry stakeholders to aim for integration and to work together to identify the “golden thread” towards a common purpose.
She sees sustainability as that golden thread.
“We only have one planet and one chance. If we’re all not working towards that in our various aspects, then we have a problem.”
