One decade down, more to come: Women's Agenda turns TEN today

One decade down, more to come: Women’s Agenda turns TEN today

On the 8th August 2012, we launched Women’s Agenda into the world.

There was no countdown, or ‘publish’ button. Rather months of work planning out what this publication would be, writing an initial pool of stories, practicing the daily work of publishing news content, speaking with potential commercial partners, and designing and developing a website.

The first stories we published ten years ago included an investigation into women on boards. We wrote about Marissa Mayer being appointed CEO of Yahoo, Gina Rinehart and Julia Gillard making power lists internationally. We wrote stories about women in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Chile, Laos, the United States and South Africa, all within the first 48 hours.

Within weeks, we were reporting on the “women destroying the joint” — thanks to Alan Jones describing some of the country’s most powerful women as doing so. By October, we crowded around a desktop PC, watching as then Prime Minister Julia Gillard shared her historic misogyny speech in Parliament. Within a couple of years, Tony Abbott would be Prime Minister and Minister for Women. There was the #MeToo era to come and go. The Hillary Clinton campaign. The Trump election. The Trump presidency. The Turnbull Government. The Morrison Government. There were (and still are) climate wars. There was (and still is) the pandemic. There has been a marked shift in how we work — in terms of flexibility and working from home — that seemed to happen faster than we could have imagined would be possible back in 2012.

But on that first night sharing Women’s Agenda, sharing wine in plastic cups, we had no idea what was to come or even what kind of traction this publication would pick up. It felt new and game-changing. It was actually a little difficult to explain what a daily news platform for women that aimed to focus on careers and representation would actually look like.

Women’s Agenda was first launched by Private Media, an independent media published based in Melbourne and owned by Eric Beecher. It was the brainchild of Marina Go, who came across from another publisher to set it up and launch it and bring together a team to make it happen, appointing me as founding editor.

We launched with a dream team (shout out to our producer Jordi Roth) and access to more resources as part of a larger publisher. Marina promised to write a column every day (even after being appointed CEO of Private Media) and she never failed to deliver in the first couple of years, sharing valuable insights into (mostly) leadership, but also feminism, body image, parenting, fashion and so much more.

Amanda Gome, then publisher of Smart Company, was pushing to get more women in business stories heard. A year after launch, I took six months off to have my first child and reconnected with Georgie Dent, who took over the editing role while I was on leave. She stayed on when I returned and became integral to evolving a courageous and passionate style of writing and reporting on Women’s Agenda that we’ve become known for.

Then, in 2016 I acquired Women’s Agenda from Private Media while on parental leave with my second child. My baby was six weeks old. I had no team, no money, and few ideas on how I was going to make it work. I had budgeted six months of leave, so that became the runway. The immediate goal was to keep publishing however I could. This usually meant from my bedroom, next to (on good days) a napping baby. To this day, ten years later, we have never missed a daily newsletter– something I’m infinitely proud of.

But there were always so many great women in my corner — including Marina and Georgie who became a contributing editor later in that first year. And of course Tarla Lambert, whom I’d met at Private Media and who would eventually come on full time as my co founder in Agenda Media.

Tarla and I are now six years into this journey together — enough time to have had another three babies between us. We’ve worked hard, launching several projects and sub-ventures together and emboldening each other (most days) with a shared energy and passion for what we do and where we want to go.

Six years to become confident in the type of women’s media business we’ve created — one that’s low on resources (and, to be fair, low on glamour) but then high on passion and talent in the team we’ve built around it. It’s also a media business that’s focused on email newsletters — an idea that may have sounded a little quaint just a few years ago, but one that is necessary in a world of flailing social media audiences that can quickly fall victim to the whims of billionaire founders.

With no outside investment and a need to pull a salary ourselves, we’ve also found confidence in growing slowly — bringing on one or so additional team members a year. And we know that growing a strong and engaged readership certainly doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years of work: marketing work, business development work, social media work and the work that comes in building a great team. But most importantly, it takes years of consistently publishing stories that matter to our audience every, single day.

We are one decade down. We could share some lofty goals about the decade to come for this business, but I know that a week — let alone a year or ten years — is a very, very long time in media.

More importantly, we know that this decade to come will be critical in shaping the future: climate change, equality and equity, the continued pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and more. The best outcomes for all of these issues depend on getting the best minds into the room. We can’t do that without tapping into the full potential of women and girls — which can’t be done without significantly progressing representation across business, politics and the community.

We will continue to play a part in supporting the need for such representation: holding governments and organisations to account, sharing where progress is being made, highlighting the latest research and calling out what needs to be called out.

We’re very much in for another decade. There are thousands more stories to come.

×

Stay Smart! Get Savvy!

Get Women’s Agenda in your inbox