Who Are Diversity Alliance?
Gabby Austen-Browne is a multi award winning diversity and inclusion expert, delivering consultancy, education, training and impactful initiatives for the events, MICE and hospitality sectors as founder and director of Diversity Alliance and co-founder of the Diverse Speaker Bureau. She brings her breadth of experience as an events and hospitality professional to inform, support and advise on DE&I strategies that are relevant to the sector.
Gabby's diversity and inclusion journey has been a long one. Before moving to events, Gabrielle was a professional dance artist gaining a Masters in Community Dance from Laban, focussing on delivering creative activities to marginalised communities, giving access to dance and performance to underrepresented groups including those with physical and learning disabilities, older people, young people in pupil referral units and refugees. She worked with the Chickenshed Theatre Co. where she completed their diversity and inclusion training and went on to deliver workshops and facilitate sessions for practitioners on delivering inclusive performance sessions and teaching performance in an inclusive way.
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Using her voice in the industry, Gabby provides the platform for professionals to share their stories and insights around EDI in the workplace and at events via her YouTube channel and podcast, Diversity Alliance Talks.
Gabby regularly writes about EDI for a variety of industry publications and lectures on Diversity & Inclusion in events and has appeared on many panels and hosted talks about diversity in and outside of the events industry. In addition to being an award winner herself, she is also a judge for the C&IT awards 2022, CN Agency Awards 2022, EN Suppliers Awards 2022, CN 30 under 30, and M&IT’s Tomorrow's Talent award 2022/23.
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She is a mentor and racial diversity ambassador for the Fast Forward 15 mentorship programme, with the aim to encourage applications from more diverse mentees and mentors, specifically from underrepresented communities, which has been incredibly successful. Gabby is also co-founder of the REACH Scholarship programme working with Universities, to support Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority events management students with living costs, to directly improve representation and address the talent pipeline at a grassroots level.
All her work is underpinned by her experience and expertise in the health and wellbeing space. Gabrielle is a qualified yoga and mindfulness teacher who brings these skills to create mindful, accessible and inclusive environments, when working with clients.
