Q&A with Google’s Mel Silva: Women, the walkout, and why leaders need to do more on gender and inclusion
18 months into her time at the top of Google in Australia, and on the eve of International Women’s Day, Mel Silva laments the slow pace of change in gender diversity and inclusion across the industry, but is optimistic it can improve.
She speaks to Mumbrella’s Vivienne Kelly about the issue, as well as Google being a punching bag for publishers, and she reveals her best and worst day at work.
INTERVIEW:
Mel Silva, managing director, Google Australia and New Zealand (MS)
Vivienne Kelly, editor, Mumbrella (VK)
VK: Do you think the industry is diverse enough? And what other steps do you think we should be taking to make it more diverse?
Mel is an amazing leader and champion person so great to see her views here. What we need more from Google though is a true and honest assessment of their role and value in the current media and content economy. Society is fracturing with poor and biased news this is in part due to Google and Facebook pillaging and scraping from business that invest in journalism. Time to pay local taxes and pay professional content creators to invest time and money into independent and quality journalism. Society is on hiding to nothing if rumor and gossip is our future, use your billions for good.
Good point regarding the need for diversity in industry bodies.
IAB, PCA, CRA, OMA, MFA, WTF ?