The Wonder woman championing diversity

Wonder Women, the network set up to elevate diverse women into senior leadership in the TV and the creative industries, is back in September for its second annual conference at BAFTA in London. Ria Hebden explains why she set up the network, how it has evolved into a multi-faceted organisation and why its role is more important than ever.

It is seven years since Ria Hebden set up Wonder Women, the community interest company whose mission is to “elevate women from underrepresented and marginalised groups who work in television and the creative industries at mid to senior levels in their careers.”

Hebden is a successful TV presenter and broadcaster who is currently the official entertainment reporter for ITV breakfast show Lorraine and whose other career highlights include presenting factual entertainment programmes All Around Britain for ITV and Sunday Morning Live on BBC One. But Hebden’s career path has been far from a breeze. “As a woman of colour, from a working-class background, as a mother and as a freelancer, there are a multitude of barriers and obstacles that we encounter every day,” she tells C21.

Indeed, Hebden has no trouble pinpointing the specific “obstacle” that convinced her to set up Wonder Women. “I was part of a women’s network, which I won’t name, and I was being mentored and I’d been invited to a session to help women set up their own businesses,” Hebden recalls.

Back then, Hebden had swapped her job working at Discovery, which she describes as “a brilliant company, very diverse, very multinational and very innovative, progressive and forward thinking,” for the freelance world. And she had recently given birth to her second child.

“My daughter was about four months old, so she was very, very young. And my husband, who at the time was a freelance producer and director, had been booked the night before, very last-minute.” This meant Hebden would either have to miss the event or take her daughter with her. “Because I didn’t want to miss it, I said, ‘You know what? This is life. I have a baby and I’m a woman and I’m part of a women’s network. So I’m going to go, and bring my baby.’”

Even though she felt “a bit nervous,” as she puts it, Hebden remembers the other women in the room being very supportive of her decision to bring her baby with her. But then, just as she was about to leave, she was approached by the CEO of the network, who told her, in no uncertain terms, that it wasn’t a good idea to do so as this might encourage others to do the same. “I felt so demoralised in that moment, and very vulnerable because I had a very small baby on my chest that I thought, ‘Wow, what? Why did that happen? And how can that happen in a space that is meant to support women, especially working parents?’”

That was the day Hebden decided that she was going to “set up a network that is inclusive, that supports women, that brings people together, so that this never happens again on my watch.”

Wonder Women also has roots in a digital TV show Hebden worked on in 2016. “I interviewed three leaders who had reached mid to senior level in their careers,” she says. The idea behind the show was “to share their stories, show the diversity and the breadth of roles that are available in television,” but also “to discuss the barriers that they might have encountered, and most crucially, how they have overcome them.”

Wonder Women Live is held every year on International Women’s Day

Hebden remembers well the three women she interviewed: “We had Abigail Dankwa, representing television directing, we had Lindsay Duthie, who is now the CEO of the Production Guild of Great Britain, and we had Jude Winstanley, who at the time was a senior line producer.”

The show was a hit and, coming from a background in live events (for many years, Hebden was a publicist for several global entertainment brands), the Wonder Women founder decided to launch a live event. “And that’s how we birthed Wonder Women Live, which we’ve held every year on International Women’s Day for seven years now,” explains Hebden. The event welcomes freelancers as well as people from the corporate world “who come together for a day of celebration” as well as to learn from senior leaders.

Another live event, which launched at BAFTA last year, is the Wonder Women Conference. The day features senior industry executives in a series of keynotes, panels and masterclasses and attracts around 250 delegates. This year the event takes place on September 21 and speakers already confirmed include Sarb Nijjer, chief operating officer of Banijay UK, and Nova Reid, author of How to Be a Good Ally, whom Hebden describes as an “anti-racist activist and changemaker.”

Hebden, who is all too aware of the bleak industry news currently in the headlines, says: “Hearing from [Reid] and having tangible takeaways in how we can all do better and support each other and be more inclusive is really valuable given the current climate.”

The haemorrhaging of jobs in the industry is stark. A survey by the UK’s TV and film union Bectu, released at the end of July, shows that over half of the UK’s screen sector is currently out of work. While 51% of white workers are currently unemployed, the figure is much higher among black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) respondents (62% black/black British, 67% Asian/Asian British and 56% other BAME groups).

Hebden says: “This year, it is crucial not just to bring business leaders from the industry together to talk about what is happening in the sector, why things are taking so long to make, to implement crucial change, but also to recognise that whenever there’s any economic downturn or industry slowdown, the most marginalised people are at high risk of leaving the sector.

“It’s our responsibility to ensure we futureproof the sector and that we retain and we nurture and develop the most marginalised people, because all of the stories are valid and all of those people deserve to be heard and to be seen.”

One of the aspects of the Wonder Women Conference Hebden says is most effective is the way it is structured to “facilitate people connecting,” noting that “some have found mentors and some have found jobs from coming to the events.”

“Mentorship is so important. Having someone that you can trust and speak in confidence with about the issues that come up for you as a woman is really important,” comments Hebden.

One of her proudest mentor/mentee pairings has involved Seetha Kumar, the ex-CEO of ScreenSkills. “We paired her with Emma Hardie, who has now secured a board role and a global executive role at Aardman Studios,” says Hebden.

“Emma first came to us when she had just had a second baby, and she was really keen to secure a global role. But she also wanted to be based in Bristol, and with the help of Seetha and the support of the mentorship throughout the year, we put things in place to help her to achieve her goals. Earlier this year, she contacted me and said, ‘I want to take you out for lunch. I’ve got something I want you to be the first person that I tell.’ I nearly fell off my chair when she said that because this was the one for her.”

Aside from mentoring, another area Wonder Women has moved into is podcasts. Its latest series is about to come out and features the likes of Hilary Rosen, director of commissioning at UKTV; Sophie Turner Laing, chair of the National Film and Television School and former CEO of Endemol Shine Group; Mel Hoyes, director of inclusion at the British Film Institute; and Babita Bahal, group head of diversity, equity and inclusion at Fremantle.

Hebden says: “There’s nothing that pleases me more than when somebody comes to one of our live events and they say, ‘Oh, I listened to your podcast all the way from Leeds to London’. And I’m just like, ‘Thank you so much! That’s amazing! You’re not just listening to one episode, you’re listening to the whole thing. That’s great.’”

You might call that a virtuous circle, or in this case, a network that is effectively elevating diverse women into senior leadership positions in TV and the creative industries.

The Wonder Women Conference takes place at BAFTA on September 21, 2024. For more information visit www.wonderwomentv.com.