Kaumudi Goda, Esq provides the history of KeyNote - Asia's Women Speakers Registry as we celebrate it's 1 year existence.
KeyNote - Asia' Women Speakers Registry Launch
The story of KeyNote began in August 2017 when the executive board of PrimeTime Business and Professional Women Association (“PrimeTime”), a 21 year-old registered non-profit focused on women's empowerment began to discuss the idea of an exclusive directory of women speakers. PrimeTime SG had many members who were great speakers and who had other great speakers in their own networks.
The mantle to lead this new program was placed on the capable shoulders of Mette Johansson. Mette is a published author, coach/trainer and an international keynote speaker. With her visionary thinking and international experience, Mette was the right person to build the KeyNote organization.
Quickly, the directory built a list of established women speakers who were experts on a wide range of topics and represented many nationalities. Through purely word of mouth, KeyNote garnered supporters and advocates around the world. Speakers, speaker bureaus and networking organizations from other parts of ASEAN , EU and the U.S. reached out expressing interest.
KeyNote's Three Pillars
There are three pillars to KeyNote activity. One, celebrate women speakers who are domain experts passionate about their subject; Two, provide a free, easy to access, online directory of Women Speakers for event organizers; Three, develop the next generation of powerful women speakers.
The KeyNote Speaker Training Program was born of pillar three. The speakers featured on the directory share their expertise and practical tips with other women who are seeking to strengthen their own oratory skills, thereby expanding the community of women speakers.
The training program covers eight distinct topics taught by different trainers. In September 2018, 24 women from our first cohort, of diverse fields and varied experiences culminated their learning journey with us with their final presentations in front of illustrious judges all of whom are internationally well known speakers themselves. Three exceptional finalists were then added to the speaker directory. Our second cohort is well under way and we have a long waiting list for the third one.
International Women's Day Events
On March 8th, 2019, on the occasion on International Women's Day, KeyNote will be hosting our first official public event with 6 phenomenal speakers talking about cutting edge, inspiring topics in collaboration with several sponsors, collaborators and affiliate networks. We are also proud to launch KeyNote’s first book, “Professionally Speaking” authored by KeyNote speakers on the same day.
We have been able to bring together a community of powerful women and harness their passion and entrepreneurial spirit. In doing so, we have together, built something bigger than originally envisioned. KeyNote has palpably infectious energy. It grows at a remarkable pace with multiple projects in the pipeline and an ever-expanding team of volunteers. These volunteers leverage their outstanding expertise to spearhead new projects every day. We have been fielding active enquiries from corporates seeking similar training for their women leaders. We have books in the works and myriad activities across Asia, Europe and USA.
What started off as a small idea in the little red dot called Singapore has gone global with activity initiated in Europe, USA and Malaysia, India and Japan. We’ve found that the idea of celebrating, supporting and promoting diversity amongst speakers resonates strongly with everyone. Posts by members of the KeyNote community have gone viral, garnering thousands of hits within hours on LinkedIn.
Seeing this early success continues to inspire us to bring greater diversity across world stages. At KeyNote, we showcase women speakers, thought leaders and exemplars of success, provide women more opportunities to shine and develop the next generation of powerful keynote speakers across all regions.