DEI put in the ICCA spotlight for 2024 and beyond

ICCA CEO Senthil Gopinath Says DEI is the biggest challenge of all to get members engaged. At ICCA we talk continuously about Sustainability, DEI, Legacy, and Innovation. These pillars inspire our interaction with our members and form the basis of much of the discussions we have with our associations. They provide the bedrock of work undertaken with external agencies and cross-organisational bodies, including The GDS-Movement, the Net Zero Carbon Events initiative, and the Response Room Innovation Challenge. Legacy is changing the narrative around how destinations and convention bureaus win new business. Legacy is also what associations want to leave behind when they exit the meeting space, as demonstrated in the annual Incredible Impacts Awards Programme run in conjunction with the BestCities Global Alliance. To me however – and on behalf of ICCA – it is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) which presents the greatest challenge, need, and opportunity to make a lasting difference. DEI has not been overlooked per se, but it is the most difficult of our pillars to define and quantify. DEI is integral to the fabric of a progressive and forward-thinking organisation. DEI is an ongoing programme of engagement, education, and explanation. We are a members’ organisation and, as with Sustainability, some members we work closely with are more engaged in DEI than others. To those who are not, we have an opportunity to start a conversation and construct a new narrative because I believe our industry should embrace and deliver change. We can champion more visible and more real opportunities for the under-represented irrespective of place, age, circumstance, or persuasion. At the recent 62nd ICCA Congress we gave visibility to our younger professionals, those already making strides in our community and those invited as Class of 23 student guests. This is the generation who question what has come before and challenge what is evident now. They are the drivers of change. People like me are merely custodians of our own time. It is our responsibility and our privilege to be sentinels for what comes next; to be more diverse, to give greater equity to all, to open our hearts, minds, and best practices to inclusion. This must happen on our watch. DEI is a powerful tool for new talent attraction, and we should seek, harness, and develop talent across all the businesses and services we interact with and rely upon. Expect ICCA to increase the volume around DEI in 2024. After all, ICCA was founded by people from different parts of the world and now encompasses all the different sectors of our industry. We are merely living up to our core values by elevating the importance of DEI in the global meetings arena and advocating for a more welcoming and inclusive environment. Our plans will provide thought leadership and strategy to create a real and achievable DEI track that we will actively promote to our expanding global community. We will do this through proactive networking, we will create dedicated resources, we will advocate at all levels, sharing stories of successful implementation so all belong of this collective journey. We will achieve much of this through collaboration… the very thing that has guided ICCA for the last 60+ years. We are our members. Our members are us. DEI is firmly in the spotlight and the message is simple: we must capture and celebrate the strength we find in our many differences. And we are starting with a renewed focus now, because what we do today matters in 2024… 2025… 2026…