Gender diversity advocate Rise expands into North America and Asia

Rise, the membership organisation for gender diversity within the broadcast technology sector, is to launch in North America and the APAC region.

Originally a UK-based initiative, the expansion will see Serena Harris, North American sales director at Annex Pro, running Rise North America. Harris, who is based in Vancouver, has over two decades of experience in the media and entertainment industry and also worked with Avid and Marquis.

Nancy Diaz Curiel, the managing director of Digigram Asia will be running Rise APAC. Based in Singapore, she has over 10 years of experience in the broadcast industry and will be launching a Rise mentoring scheme in the region shortly.

Harris said: “I am overjoyed to be launching Rise North America. What Rise is doing for women in the industry is extraordinary and I want to open those same opportunities to women here. I am very much looking forward to building on the momentum of Rise’s success’ to help even more women realize their potential and growth within our industry.”

Her counterpart in Asia, Curial, added: “I am humbled to be appointed head of the APAC antenna of the organization. I am a strong believer in gender equality and am an active participant in several mentoring initiatives in the APAC region to highlight and drive the success of the amazing women in our industry.”

In addition to the global expansion of Rise, it has also appointed four new board members: Andy Beale, chief engineer, BT Sport; Lisa Lavender, operations director of The British Arrows; Joanna Cosgrove, director at Moore Kingston Smith LLP; and Tanya Rai, key account manager at Sundog Media Toolkit.

Rise managing director Carrie Wootten stated: “Rise is growing at an astonishing rate, and we are immensely grateful to all of our sponsors and partners who have enabled this to happen. Expanding into the North American and APAC market is very exciting, and we are positive Serena and Nancy will go beyond our expectations in advancing our global efforts in gender equality for the industry.”

“We have further plans for growth for both our Rise programme, and Rise Up and therefore have appointed four dedicated members of the industry, Andy, Lisa, Joanna and Tanya to help play a key part with our ever-expanding vision and help us reach our global goals.”

Rise is supported by Avid, Sky, Clear-Com, Audio-Technica Europe, Ross Video, the DPP  and Pixelogic

Rise Up, a new school outreach initiative to inspire and educate children about broadcast technology, is supported by BT Sport and Sky.