Why I won’t be attending Cranfield University’s Alumni Conference
Dear Cranfield Alumni, Baroness Young of Old Scone, Sir Peter, Dame Deidre,
I was looking ahead to Friday having booked a ticket to the Alumni Conference — Leading through change.
I booked a ticket some months ago based on simply the title of the conference and my own great experience of Cranfield through The Business Growth Programme (so good my business partner Sam Conniff and I did it twice!).
This morning I thought I’d take a look at the agenda and speaker list to get a feel for the topic in advance.
It’s incredibly disappointing to see that in a line up of 14 speakers, only one is a woman and the other 13 are white, middle-aged men. What a woeful lack of diversity and representation.
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Perhaps the session you named ‘3 wise men’ might have highlighted the problem?
I’ve no doubt that the 13 male professionals are all brilliant and have much experience, knowledge and indeed wisdom to share, but I also imagine they come from pretty similar backgrounds, journeys and experiences.
Where are the women? Where are the people of colour? Where are the outsiders and outliers who have all kinds of experience of ‘change’? What an utterly missed opportunity. What an utterly unimaginative, unthoughtful, lazy design and curation of an alumni event.
It looks like a fair few of the speakers are Cranfield lecturers. Perhaps Cranfield needs to employ its own change programme and create an organisation that is more diverse, celebrates difference and better reflects and connects with the breadth of society?
I’d be happy to talk to you about this issue you are facing.
I’d urge the alumni and your speakers to send a message to you.
I’ll be sending mine by not attending.
Michelle Morgan
