Inspired by the lack of diversity in certain industries, this start-up runs large-scale, global conferences to encourage inclusivity
Founders: Michaela Jeffery-Morrison, Patrick Lewis and Freddie Lewis
Founded: September 2015
Website: www.maddoxevents.com
Tech, banking, construction, law and sports are a set of industries which have famously had little gender diversity.
Looking to tackle this issue, and having seen the way that conferences could bring people together, events professionals Michaela Jeffery-Morrison, Patrick Lewis and Freddie Lewis came up with an idea – they would run a series of B2B events championing inclusivity in these industries.
Launched in September 2015, their start-up Maddox Events prides itself on “creating the most progressive and forward-thinking diversity-focused events in the global event market”.
With diverse speaker line-ups, content and practical insight, the start-up’s large-scale conferences encourage representation of different genders, races, religions, sexualities, disabilities and ethnicities in businesses by addressing challenges and inspiring change.
Already, Maddox Events’ approach is making huge waves in the events industry.
Notably, its the events company behind “the largest women in tech event in the world”, which it runs annually in the UK and has scaled to run the same conference in Australia, Amsterdam and San Francisco, with one soon to launch in Dubai.
The start-up has tens of thousands of delegates, and an awe-inspiring list of clients and event sponsors including Google, Spotify, Amazon, Sky, Facebook, Microsoft, eBay, JP Morgan, and Disney.
According to its founders, the business’ success has been largely due to the fact that its events are the only ones in the marketplace which focus wholly on diversity and inclusion.
Having begun to break down the barriers in specific industries, Maddox Events is now looking to explore new sectors where inclusion and diversity are hot topics, such as film and media, and will create new conferences dealing with race and ethnicity.
Playing an increasing role in pushing for social change, Maddox Events has merged a enterprising mission with commercial potential (the trio tell us they have “delivered triple digit year-on-year financial growth”), and we suspect 2018 will be a big year for the business.
