Women make up 77% of the global events workforce, yet hold only 16% of leadership roles. The imbalance is well known, but the women driving this industry forward are still too often overlooked.
The 70% is a weekly series dedicated to changing that. Each instalment profiles a woman whose work, insight, and ambition shape the events sector – from emerging talent to established leaders. Through their stories, we explore the pathways, challenges, and perspectives defining what leadership looks like today.
This week we meet Melissa Tyler, group strategy director at Patch Marketing and co-founder of Venue Marketing Community.
How many years have you been in the events industry?
7.5 years, 8 this coming October.
How do you balance professional growth with personal commitments, and do you think the industry is evolving in terms of work-life balance?
Honestly, this is something I still navigate rather than have solved. And I’m not sure it’s something that can ever be 100% perfected because priorities change for everyone at different times, and life is unpredictable.
Some people in my life would tell me I work too much, and I always say that’s not because the work demands it, but because I genuinely love what I do and highly value my own professional growth. But I’ve learned the hard way that loving your work isn’t the same as not needing rest. Stepping back, taking real breaks, being present away from screens, those aren’t things to feel guilty about.
They’re what keep me sharp and genuinely enthusiastic rather than just going through the motions or powering through tiredness. I think taking breaks, recognising how you feel within yourself and when you need that break, should be championed and encouraged more.
It’s self-awareness and regulation, and that’s incredibly healthy. Yes, the industry has evolved. But on work-life balance for women specifically, I don’t think we’ve moved as far as we’d like to believe. The gender responsibility gap is still very much there, particularly when it comes to children and caregiving. I watched my mum carry the full weight of working full-time and raising me as a single parent, and if I’m honest, I don’t see as much of a difference now as I’d like to. The industry has become better at talking about balance than it is at structurally supporting it. And until that changes across all levels, we shouldn’t be patting ourselves on the back just yet.
How do you see the events industry evolving in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion?
We’re at an interesting point. The events industry has become noticeably better at talking about DEI, and some of that conversation has translated into genuine action – more diverse speaker line-ups, more conscious hiring, more communities built by and for underrepresented groups.
But I’d be doing a disservice to the people still navigating the gap if I said we’d cracked it, because we haven’t. I feel we’re at a point where progression systems are built around a version of leadership that was never designed with women in mind. And that’s where we need to go back to square one.
What does a career ladder look like when it’s built with women and men in mind?
Where I’d like to see real evolution is in the move from representation to inclusion. You can have women in a room without giving them genuine influence in it. You can celebrate diversity in October and revert to the same patterns in November.
What I want to see is consistency…are the same decisions being made about flexibility, visibility, and opportunity when it’s not a headline, trend or cop-out “National Day” in the social calendar? I also want to be honest about whose voice this is. I’m a white woman in a leadership role, and to my knowledge, my own path hasn’t been shaped by the barriers many other women in this industry describe.
So, I’d like to shed light on a story that isn’t mine, but a former client’s, who doesn’t mind me sharing her lived experience to highlight a very different reality. A sales manager at a large conference venue in central London, she found out she’d nearly missed out on a hotel job when the hiring team read her full name. “I gave my full name as it was an application, so on seeing the name Ropinder, they thought I may be too dark for the role.” It struck a painful chord with me that this was her first experience of the industry I adore so much, and how unfairly heartbreaking it was.
She still built a successful career and rose through the ranks. She is also someone who has now left the industry. And until we’re honest about how often those two things sit side by side in the careers of women of colour, we shouldn’t pretend the work is anywhere near done.
What advice would you give to young women looking to enter and succeed in the events industry?
We’re in an industry where relationships are everything, so invest in them early on. Not with the intention of what someone can do for you right now. The network you build in your first few years becomes one of your greatest assets. Surround yourself with people who champion you. And I don’t just mean women; there are men in this industry who don’t just treat women as equals, they actively champion them, root for them, support them wholeheartedly. And be ambitious without apologising for it. Know your value, articulate it clearly, and don’t wait to be asked.
The most powerful thing you can do for the women coming behind you is show them what it looks like to take up space.
How do you handle setbacks and failures?
I’m a bit of a control freak, so when something doesn’t go the way I planned, my instinct now is to dig to understand why and fix it for future opportunities. But I haven’t always been like that. Before, emotions would take over, and I’d immediately blame myself. I still have emotional reactions to failure, but now they’re fuel to push me to be better next time.
My process is to sit with what has happened, talk it through with people I trust, and ask myself what was genuinely in my control and what wasn’t. Not everything that goes wrong is yours to own and not understanding that is how people lose their confidence unnecessarily.
The events industry is fast and high-pressure by nature. Things go wrong, sometimes very publicly. Our industry has immense value; we’ve seen that proven year in year out, but let’s be honest, nobody dies on the table for our jobs, so if it goes wrong, we do have the opportunity to bring it back. So, it’s then about how you react.
What changes do you think are still needed to create more opportunities for women in leadership?
People always say, ‘lead from the front’, and they’re right, so if we’re serious about change, it must start at the top. I’d redesign the leadership model, so boards are built around a 360-degree view of experience: senior leaders alongside early-career voices, the advantaged alongside the disadvantaged, industry lifers alongside people who’ve come in sideways. Every angle in the room, actively challenging each other.
Not just ‘more women on boards’, although yes, that too. More experience and perspective. When you design for diversity, the decisions get sharper, strategies are more relevant and the outcomes more well-rounded.
The practical work is equally important. Sponsorship, not just mentorship – and there’s a real difference between them. Mentors speak to you. Sponsors speak about you, in the rooms you’re not yet in. Transparent pay and progression, so women aren’t underpaid for the same role. Flexibility, and an honest look at who’s being promoted, why, and what we’ve come to assume leadership is supposed to look like.
We’ve built a version of leadership over decades that wasn’t designed with women, or a lot of other people, in mind. Tweaking it at the edges won’t undo that. Rebuilding it might.
