Eileen Hanna is Senior Brand Manager at Diageo who campaigns for gender equality in the workplace.

"I come from a family of two very strong women - my mom and my sister. My father had four sisters, so definitely a big female family and very opinionated," says Eileen. "I think it definitely played a role that I have an older sister. We are nine years apart. She's basically acted like a role model - she's a fantastic mom and she's a fantastic lawyer. She's always been really good advice, the same that I try to do with other women she's done with me."

Proving your worth at work

Eileen believes the question isn't why you should progress women - it's a natural fact that women should be equal to men in an organization. "They're not different, they're just another set of opinions; they are another set of different expertise and skills," says Eileen. "I think society still thinks that you need to prove yourself to have a seat at the table." Eileen adds that even women overwork themselves to feel worthy of those positions within a company.

"We still feel the need to prove that we're able to be in a company, that we have the capacity to be there, the strength to be there," says Eileen.

Campaigning for gender equality

According to Eileen, everyone, regardless of gender, can be a spokesperson for gender equality. When Eileen listened to what it meant for women to create music in the electronic music space, she discovered a huge gender inequality issue that can be seen in any other industry. In response to this, Eileen created the Equalising Music campaign.

"We started a conversation. We created positive impact. We did something that mattered and that's a really important one for me now," comments Eileen.

Making diversity the norm

For Eileen, another issue is companies are not aligning the cultural mindset. Millennials are growing up thinking there's no taboos and that diversity is a norm for us. However, as these millennials grow into businesses that aren't moving at the same fast pace as culture, that's where Eileen believes people are posing the question of: why is this a question and why is this an issue?

"I think that bringing it up forcing it until it does happen, until we are equal. I will still make that question: why are we there?" says Eileen.

Looking to the future

Eileen wants to see more of the women's movement that started last year with the Women's March.  "It was really exciting to see and I participated in New York. I'm really looking forward to seeing what's going to happen next year."

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